It seems unwise to drop all of the mask mandates when this infectious variant has arrived in the US. I know everyone is tired of the pandemic but I’m still wearing masks.
Sometime over the next few weeks BA.2 will begin to surge in the US and we’ll have to reinstate mask mandates. It will be very hard to do and we will wonder why it was so urgent to drop mask mandates.
— Jonathan Reiner (@JReinerMD) March 16, 2022
According to @Walgreens testing data, BA.2 is now the dominant sub-variant in the United States at 51.1% of new cases.https://t.co/UwVQV5rgtE
— John Brownstein (@johnbrownstein) March 22, 2022
CC @EricTopol @RickABright @svscarpino @jessicamalaty @cha_myoung @AbraarKaran @meganranney @PPI_Insights @ASlavitt @bhrenton @EpiEllie pic.twitter.com/2a9ucgW3LU
COVID Update: I’ve talked to 4 experts this weekend about what a BA.2 wave of Omicron in the US might look like.
— Andy Slavitt 💙💛 (@ASlavitt) March 20, 2022
BA2, a more transmissible virus, is sweeping Europe & Asia but the impact here could be strikingly different. 1/
Researchers are keeping an eye on a highly transmissible subvariant of Omicron known as BA.2. Here’s what we know so far about it. https://t.co/K1cW1IBUFj
— The New York Times (@nytimes) March 19, 2022
⚠️BA2 & 1-year hospitalization RECORD HIGH in Age 85&up—I don’t know how many dismissive TV pundits need to hear this—but #BA2 is mostly definitely causing a huge hospitalization ⬆️ spike in England🏴. Worse—📌BA2 🏥 rate in 65+ now just exceeded old Omicron!
— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) March 18, 2022
HT @Antonio_Caramia pic.twitter.com/ZzLPqIsywc
Hello 🇺🇸
— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) March 17, 2022
You just got over a wave of the most transmissible #SARSCoV2 variant the world has seen, with the highest level of hospitalizations in the pandemic.
Now you are facing a variant w/ 30% more transmissibility, w/o mitigation measures, low vaxx coverage, and gutting funding pic.twitter.com/6zRjH9h02U
Sad! 