PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Thursday, June 3, will mark three weeks since the CDC said vaccinated people do not need to wear masks anymore. Despite angst, distrust and consternation at the time, there has not been a rise in cases of COVID-19 in that time.
According to Pennsylvania Department of Health data, the daily average of new cases statewide is about one-third of what it was on May 13, when Pennsylvania followed the lead of the CDC and announced that fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear a mask inside or outside.
Dr. David Damsker, Bucks County' health director, says rather than the spike in cases that some feared would follow — "that people that were unvaccinated were gonna run around taking their masks off and cause spikes" — new cases counts are way down.
"Some of that is the seasonality of the summer," he said. The virus doesn’t spread as easily in warm, humid air, and people are outdoors. But he says it’s also because of vaccines and natural immunity. The virus just can’t find as many people to infect as before.
Damsker also points out hospitalizations and deaths are down significantly, especially among people who are vaccinated.
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It’s time to switch our focus, Damsker says.
"COVID is over from the emergency perspective, but it’s going to be with us for a long period of time, and we have to transition to the chronic perspective and start treating it like influenza," he said.
"We have a great vaccine for it," he added.
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Damsker says we can expect COVID-19 cases to stay low through the summer. Then, it's unknown exactly what will happen with COVID-19 when the typical cold and flu season begins in late fall.
"But the difference between last November-December and this November-December is that we have a vaccine, and we’re hopefully going to have 70% of people vaccinated," he said.
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Because of lingering fears of viral spread, Pennsylvania’s mask requirement for unvaccinated people will stay in place until June 28 or until 70% of adults are fully vaccinated.
Damsker says he feels that’s an arbitrary date, and the mask mandate should have been lifted with other restrictions on Memorial Day. The sharp drop in cases over the past month and a half is because of increased vaccine availability, not masks, he said. And, he points out, it’s unlikely anything about the coronavirus or human behavior will change in the coming weeks.
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