As public health experts dispute the wisdom of California’s decision to alleviate coronavirus restrictions, they are warning residents to tighten precautions now that highly contagious variants and an ever-high positive test rate are creating a “more dangerous world.”
“We will have to do a great education to ensure that people do not misinterpret the removal of the local homeland and think that they can carry out their lives as before COVID,” said dr. Robert Kim said. Farley, a medical epidemiologist from UCLA and an expert in infectious diseases.
“Otherwise,” he said, “we will see these numbers just go up again.”
Experts who believe that fair restrictions are justified indicate positive trends.
New cases and hospitalizations have dropped since December highs, and there will be no holidays that will put pressure on people to get together. Many mask-spotters may have become infected and gained some immunity, which poses less danger to others, and vaccines continue to roll out, albeit slowly.
But cautious optimism remains tempered by how widespread the virus remains in California, complicated by the new variants found here and elsewhere in the country. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has predicted that a variant from the United Kingdom, which is significantly more contagious and likely to be more deadly, will become the dominant American tribe by March.
Dr. John Swartzberg, an expert infectious disease in UC Berkeley, believes California ended the regional order too soon.
“If demand saves the maximum amount of lives, forecasts indicate that we will suffer far fewer deaths by now if we continue,” Swartzberg said. “I’m not talking about a long-term exclusion. Even a few more weeks will make a huge difference in lives saved. ”
Swartzberg said the decision on Jan. 25 to end the regional order so restaurants can offer outdoor dining and reopen other locations follows a now-familiar pattern.
“Every time we experience a boom, we shut down, the boom peaks, and then starts to slow down,” he said. ‘We open things too soon (think of May and early June, followed by the summer boom, and September and October followed by the winter boom), we accept a steady state of new daily cases that are significantly higher than before the boom … By opening too soon, we will build on a very high background of daily affairs. ”
Meanwhile, he and other experts say residents, if they are inside others, should wear more protective face masks – not just single-layer masks or hoods – and should consider protecting their eyes with face shields or goggles.
Trips to the grocery store should be limited and done quickly, Swartzberg said.
“This advice is not very good for people who have to work in the grocery store every day,” he added. “For these people, it just became a more dangerous world.”
According to the online MicroCOVID project, which measures and reports virus risks, the British tribe has increased the risk of infection as a result of a one-time encounter with another person by 50%. The strain has already been detected in Southern California.
Retailers should only wear graded masks, such as KN95s, and people should wear face masks outdoors, unless it is 15 feet or more from others, says the website, which is researched by many health professionals.
But according to the advice, the British tribe is already widespread in California.
Dr. Robert Wachter, professor and chair of the Department of Medicine at UC San Francisco, remains skeptical.
If the British tribe had spread more widely in California, he would have said, the cases would not have dropped as fast in the past two weeks.
Government Gavin Newsom introduced the local home rule in December for places where intensive care units are approaching full capacity. As cases and hospitalizations now fall, Wachter said it made sense to ease the rules. He and other experts noted that most of California remains at the press level, the most limited category for communities where the virus remains widespread.
As for people who think they can lower their disappointment with the weakened constraints, Wachter said, “I think most people are smarter than that.”
“We’re been a year on this,” he said, “and if people do not understand what this virus can do and how to keep yourself safe, it will be difficult to figure out what message is going to work.”
It is not believed that the British strain moves further in the air or stays longer on inanimate objects, but it attaches better to human cells to enter and multiply. People infected with it are more likely to shed viruses, and those exposed are more likely to be infected.
The vaccines now being distributed protect against the British variant, but a strain from South Africa seems more resistant to some of the drugs. Moderna, one of the vaccine manufacturers, is now working on an amplifier aimed at the mutant. but other strains detected in the United States appear more resistant.
Wachter said it was a “reasonable” precaution to wear face shields or glasses in stores. “It kind of depends on everyone’s risk tolerance,” he said.
Doctors at UC San Francisco who treat patients must wear glasses as well as masks, whether they are dealing with COVID-19 patients, Wachter said. He noted that a study from China found that people who wear glasses are less likely to become infected.
Although he would now be “a little more careful” if he were not vaccinated, he remains hopeful that compliance with the health rules, the vaccinations and immunity against the already infected, can still save the state from the massive infection that hit the UK.
“At this point, it doesn’t make sense to change your behavior completely based on the variants,” he said. “It now makes sense that there are variants to make sure you do not keep waiting.”
As the variants become more dominant, the calculations change, he said. The new strain in the UK was responsible for 70% of infections two months after it was detected.
“We need to be humble about this,” Wachter said. “This thing is constantly twisting us.”
In addition to the British variant, other strains from South Africa and Brazil have been detected in the USA. Another new variant found in California at the end of last year accounted for 24% of approximately 4,500 viral samples in California, according to researchers from the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. in Los Angeles. The tension was barely noticeable in early October.
A separate analysis of 322 samples, mostly from Northern California, found 25% of the same species in late November and December. Researchers are now studying the new strain.
Many who are infected say they have complied with all the health rules, but Swartzberg said further investigation usually finds that there has been a lapse. He cited the case of someone who once forgot to wear a mask indoors while he was with others, or another person who wears a mask while walking but is with people from outside their household.
The vaccines represent the light at the end of the tunnel, but ‘the tunnel has become very ugly,’ UCLA’s Kim-Farley said.
Southern California is recovering from a viral tsunami, the “New York moment,” and many residents know others who fell ill or died, he said. The cold chapter, he added, probably made a strong impression that will not be quickly forgotten.
“It’s better to double down now and make sure our whole family is alive, as opposed to now lax and maybe losing family members,” he said.