An epidemiologist has said Americans should still mask up indoors, possibly even inside their own homes, amid the latest surge in Covid-19.
Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, an epidemiologist at the University of Texas, told PBS News Hour last week that Americans should still “wear masks in crowded areas, especially during a surge.”
He also appeared to support wearing masks in his own home “if you want to reduce domestic transmission.”
“Certainly at home, (masks work) if you want to reduce household transmission,” he said. He also advised that if you test positive, “please wear a mask if you come out of isolation after five days.”
His comments come amid a small uptick in the virus, with hospitalizations up 12 percent over the past week, believed to be due to a new, more infectious variant dubbed ‘Eris’, which is still considered mild.
However, the increase is from a small base, and the rate is still a fraction of last year.
While Covid hospitalizations are rising, Covid rates remain at record lows. Recent deaths have also been flat and are at their lowest levels since Covid emerged, around 500 a week.
The chart above shows US recorded Covid deaths per 100,000 people. These have not started to rise and remain at record lows
The most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed that 8,000 patients were admitted to hospitals across the country the week of July 22, 12 percent more than the week before. last week.
This was the first weekly increase since December.
Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, an epidemiologist at the University of Texas, told PBS News Hour last week that Americans should still “wear masks in crowded areas, especially during a surge.”
Many current cases have been attributed to the highly infectious new variant ‘Eris’, which has quickly become dominant in the United States. Experts believe it now accounts for one in five infections in the US.
The World Health Organization has classified Eris, formally known as EG.5, as a “variant of interest.”
However, the CDC has a slightly different classification system and has designated Eris as a “watched” variant and not one of “interest” or “concern.”
The experts have saying that EG.5 is one of the fastest growing variants worldwide, which could be due to a ‘slightly beneficial mutation’, meaning it is spreading faster than its relatives.
It has also been detected in China, South Korea, Japan, and Canada, among other countries.
In the first week of July, 7.5 percent of Covid cases were due to EG.5. Now, 17.3 percent of the cases are.
“Taken together, the available evidence does not suggest that EG.5 has additional public health risks relative to the other currently circulating lineages of Omicron descendants,” the WHO said in a risk assessment.
A more comprehensive assessment of the risk posed by EG.5 was needed, he added.
Despite the rise in Covid cases, rates remain at record lows. For comparison, at the peak of the US pandemic in January 2022, hospitalizations reached 150,674. At this time last year, there were just over 44,000.
Recent deaths have also been flat and are at their lowest levels since covid emerged, around 500 a week.
Dr. Jetelina’s mask recommendations come amid a slew of recent evidence suggesting that Covid restrictions, such as mask-wearing, have hampered growth and development in children.
A CDC report released earlier this year found that from 2019 to 2021, the number of children ages 3 to 17 diagnosed with a developmental disability increased from 7.4% to 8.5%. That’s an increase of 17 percent.
And boys were twice as likely to have one as girls, with one in 10 being diagnosed. Boys also had higher rates of intellectual disability than girls, with 2.3 percent diagnosed compared to 1.4 percent.
In addition, an article published last January in the magazine NEVER which looked at 225 children born in 2020 revealed that babies were less likely to crawl and smile to themselves in a mirror within six months. It also showed that they had reduced problem-solving and social skills.
“I understand the mentality of, man, thank God it was done,” said Dr. Jetelina.
“But we do the public a disservice by turning around and saying, let’s move on, because the truth is, the virus doesn’t care. Obviously, COVID is still here.
He will be with us. It will cause interruptions. And it’s going to cause a lot of people to lose their lives.’
