No Time To Be Cavalier

 Several weeks ago the California Department of Social Services lifted the masking requirement for residents of residential facilities for the elderly. MonteCedro, our home, is one of those facilities. While masking is still encouraged, it was plain that a majority of our residents promptly shed their masks. After 30 months of required masking, that was no surprise. What is interesting is the response of the non-maskers to those of us who still take the mask precautions seriously. On more than one occasion, other residents have either suggested or plain asked that my wife and I remove our masks, saying “You don’t need to wear them anymore.” My prediction is that those seven words will lead to interesting problems.

We have a pretty much fully vaccinated and highly boosted population here. But we also have an active population here that enjoys going to see family and friends on the outside, attends activities outside, shops outside. Family members and friends visit every day. It is not a closed population. In LA County, the case numbers for covid are down and the test positivity rate has been stable at 3.8% for a while; the hospitalization and death rates are also down. That is good news. However, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control noted that the variants BQ.1/BQ.1.1 will likely represent half the European cases by December and cases of covid caused by those variants are showing a worrisome doubling time in the U.S. as well. With the earlier onset of influenza this year as well as a rising number of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) pediatric cases also occurring, some are already referring to this winter’s possibility for a tripledemic.

 

One question on my mind was how much influenza and RSV was prevented because of covid precautions? This is difficult to answer, but I suspect some proportion of influenza transmission was blocked through covid precautions at a minimum. It is harder to tell with RSV but I again suspect that masking (and more frequent handwashing) cut down on RSV in adults and children.

I think the California Department of Social Services made a mistake in lifting the masking requirement for places like MonteCedro. It is also apparent that lots of our residents are making the mistake of thinking that covid is over. The current vaccines help prevent severe illness, hospitalization, and death. Long covid remains a problem and repeated covid infections, which do occur in vaccinated and boosted adults, and repeated covid infections increase the risk for long covid. We plan to point out to our neighbors this week that the “freedom” they gain by ditching masks puts both them and others at risk. No time to be cavalier.