Though much remains unknown about the coronavirus, including two new COVID-19 variants in New York, the good news, experts said on a Newsday Live webinar Wednesday, is that tried and true protections work.
That is, getting vaccinated is far more beneficial than not doing so.
And social distancing, masking and hand washing regimens all continue to offer good protections.
“We are not in more COVID danger than we were last year, we’re moving in the right direction,” said Dr. David Battinelli, senior vice president and chief medical officer for Northwell Health. But, while social distancing, masking and hand washing protocols have helped protect us, Battinelli said, “if we give up on that too early, we could be in more danger.”
Dr. Chidubem Iloabachie, associate chairperson, Department of Emergency Medicine at Long Island Jewish-Valley Stream, said while variants were of concern because they could be more infectious, and possibly more virulent, what medical experts knew was vaccines “give good resistance to all the variants” and that those who had been vaccinated remained at low risk for getting — and, spreading — COVID-19 compared with those who hadn’t been and didn’t follow protocols.
The doctors, speaking on the webinar titled “Wait, There’s a New York Variant?” agreed that proof of how good protocols were at stopping the spread of COVID-19 could be found, in part, in the incredibly low number of flu cases this year.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported fewer than 1,600 cases — 579 cases of Influenza A, 1,016 of Influenza B — this season, calling the flu impact “minimal” and some of the lowest recorded flu totals ever.
Still, the public has been alarmed by talk of new COVID-19 variants.
The CDC said to date, a total of eight variants had been discovered.
Five variants — the U.K., Japan/Brazil, South Africa and two different California strains — are considered by the CDC as being a “variant of concern,” while two New York variants and one found last year in Brazil are a “variant of interest.”
The highest alert level for the CDC is “variant of high consequence,” which means a variant that has shown “clear evidence” that preventive measures or medical countermeasures have “reduced effectiveness.”
To date, no variants meet that classification.
The second level is “variant of concern,” which includes those that have shown evidence of increased transmissibility, more severe illness or reduced effectiveness in treatments.
The New York variants are in the lowest category, “variant of interest,” meaning while there could be reduced efficacy of treatments, as well as a predicted increase in transmissibility and severity, so far they have not risen to a level of concern over their impact on the population.
“The most important step is trying to get as many people vaccinated as possible,” Iloabachie said. He added that no one knows how long immunity provided by vaccinations will last and future booster shots will likely be needed. Still, “getting one of the vaccines that are available is far better than not getting the vaccine. … We do know it is far better getting versus not getting.”
“It’s going to take a few years before we vaccinate enough people worldwide to affect [virus] replication and variants,” Battinelli said. “People who are unvaccinated will be susceptible and also be able to spread the virus.”
Should you be vaccinated? “Yes,” Battinelli said. “It’s the way we get to a faster type, more thorough type, of herd immunity.”
Even against variants.
