To mask, or not to mask?
That is the question facing many doctors, public health officials and concerned citizens worldwide, as cases of COVID-19 once again tick upward.
Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned on Thursday that there’s a new, “highly mutated variant” of the coronavirus named BA.2.86 that’s spreading worldwide.
Recent data from the New York state Department of Health, released Aug. 2, showed that COVID cases spiked by 55% over the prior week, with an average of 824 reported cases per day across the state.
The rise in COVID-19 cases isn’t limited to New York: The CDC recorded 10,320 US hospital admissions for COVID-19 in the week ending August 5 — a 14.3% increase from the week prior.
However, despite alarmist headlines about a “summer surge,” many doctors are urging people not to panic.
“It is ticking up a little bit — but it’s not something that we need to raise any alarm bells over,” Dr. David Dowdy, an infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told the Associated Press.
And public health experts who monitor COVID-19 concentrations in wastewater aren’t seeing anything too worrisome.
“It’s important to remember right now the concentrations are still fairly low,” said Cristin Young, an epidemiologist at Biobot Analytics, the CDC’s wastewater surveillance contractor, adding that concentrations are about 2.5 times lower than they were last summer.
New variants continue to appear, including the latest one dubbed EG.5 or “eris,” but no single strain of the coronavirus has emerged as the dominant variant.
“There are a couple that we’re watching, but we’re not seeing anything like delta or omicron,” said Young, referring to the variants that sparked previous COVID-19 surges.
But for certain people, a little extra caution is recommended.
“[O]f course, if I was someone who had an underlying health condition, I would accept a whole lot less risk,” Dr. Sara Cody, the Santa Clara County (California) public health director, told the Los Angeles Times.
“And I would be very careful to mask,” Cody added.
People over the age of 65 are also more likely to get a severe case of COVID-19, the CDC warns, which may cause them to be hospitalized, need intensive care, require a ventilator, or die.
“Even though the declared emergency is over, COVID is still circulating — and it probably will be for quite some time. And so if you really don’t want to get sick, you can protect yourself by wearing a mask when you’re indoors,” said Cody.
“But it’s, at this point, an individual decision,” Cody added.