“The virus sees that and sees most faces and noses and mouths are uncovered and unprotected, so it takes advantage of that opportunity.”Ī new booster designed to better protect against many of the commonly circulating strains of Covid will be out in a month or so, and most people can wait for that new shot to jumpstart their immunity, said Dr. “In addition, most people haven’t gotten a booster for a while, so the collective immunity is lower than it was six months ago,” Wachter said. If you’re trying to be careful, it’s time to whip out the mask again.”Īlthough new coronavirus variants, like the dominant variant, EG.5, might not have driven the recent acceleration by themselves, they might be somewhat resistant to immunity provided by current vaccines and boosters. “It’s riskier that you will get infected now than it was a month or two ago, without question, probably twice as risky. “Hospitalizations have not yet doubled, but I think they probably will, as the numbers lag a couple of weeks behind,” Wachter said. Robert Wachter, professor and chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California San Francisco. Levels of the virus in wastewater from toilets - which can be an early indication of a Covid spike in a community - have doubled, said Dr. Your recent cold could be Covid-19, as the nation goes into a late summer wave

(Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images) Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune/TNS/Getty Images BinaxNOW COVID-19 test kits were made available to students at Whitney Young High School, Feb.

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