App users, tap here to watch video report.
By Christyn Allen
ERIE, Pa. (Erie News Now) – B.A. 2, also known as “stealth” omicron, is on the rise around the world.
Omicron still making up the majority of new COVID-19 cases in the United States. “It’s circulated in the U.S. for some time. We’ve been watching it closely, of course,” White House Press Secretary, Jen Psaki.
In China, they’re seemingly back to square one with lock downs, mass testing, and self-isolation. It’s the worst outbreak the country’s seen since Wuhan two years ago.
Should we be concerned here in the United States as Americans are taking their masks off?
“I think it’s just a moment to pause and kind of pay attention, but not stress out and not go back to ‘Oh, we need to isolate, and we have so much to fear.’ We’re not in that space right now,” Erie News Now contributor, Dr. Becky Dawson
B.A. 2 is just something public health officials are keeping an eye on, for now. We can’t compare our country to China because they operate on zero COVID policy.
“Public health leadership here in the United States has really said zero COVID is not possible, but what we want to do is keep people from dying. We want to keep people out of the hospitals, and we want to insure we don’t have lots and lots of community spread,” said Dawson.
People who are vaccinated plus people who have recently had the virus are building immunity for our area.
“It seems to be highly transmissible, but it’s not causing severe illness. So, I think that is really encouraging for the vast majority of us. Especially those of us that are vaccinated, or have recently been infected with the virus.”
Leave a Reply