vaccination you have a rather significant diminution of vaccine efficacy,” Fauci adds.
“What appears to hold up, even after several months, is protection against hospitalization,” Fauci shares. “The bottom line is it’s much easier to protect against hospitalization than it is to protect against infection.”
So, although you might have a greater chance of catching a mild case of BA.2, if you’re vaccinated and boosted your chances of landing in the emergency room are low, experts say.
“People that are vaccinated and boosted, they don’t seem to be having a significantly increased hospitalization rate of serious illness between BA.1 and BA.2,” says Dr. Aaron Glatt, chief of infectious diseases at Mount Sinai South Nassau in Oceanside, N.Y. “BA.2 is more contagious than BA.1, but it’s also a fact that BA.2 is not more dangerous than BA.1. Those are two facts we can take to the bank.”
Glatt also suspects that places hit hard by Omicron will not receive a one-two punch from BA.2, since the two are very nearly the same. Natural immunity acquired from the original BA.1 variant will likely carry over to some extent to BA.2.
Because of these factors, infectious disease experts don’t expect masking and social distancing requirements to be reinstituted wholesale due to BA.2, even if case counts begin to rise.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently updated its community COVID tracking to focus on hospitalizations more than case counts. If BA.2 isn’t causing more hospitalizations, then communities won’t come under pressure to bring back masking.
Timing also plays a role — BA.2 is gaining steam as the spring and summer months begin in the United States, says Dr. Abinash Virk, an infectious disease specialist with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
“There’s more ability to be outside and do more outdoor stuff, so indoor activity concentration goes down,” Virk says. “Hopefully the infection rates will not be as high as they were with Omicron BA.1.”
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Vaccines remain the best protection
Experts continue to recommend that people get vaccinated and boosted against COVID, to prevent hospitalizations and better protect against BA.2.
“We’ve still got to do better with vaccination,” Fauci says. “We only have 65% of the total population fully vaccinated. Of those who’ve been