As we are every week,
we're happy to be joined again by
Trinity health of New England doctor
Syed Hussain to talk about how we're
doing on a number of fronts health wise.
Good to see you again, Doctor.
Morning. Yeah, glad to have you here.
We're talking COVID again right now.
XB 1.5, the dominant variant.
But I wanna start over in China where
case numbers are exploding because
they tried such drastic measures to
stop previous variants from spreading.
Question is, is an explosion over
there gonna make its way over here?
Yeah, that's a good question, Tim.
So a couple of things I want to.
Remind viewers about what,
why we're different.
Compared to China,
China has had a 0 COVID policy,
which meant a really strict law.
Action campaign has really lagged behind
and as a result of these strict lockdowns,
there has been not a lot of
natural immunity to the virus.
So that's why we say see these
skyrocketing numbers out of China.
Now what's different here in the
US is we've had a very successful
vaccination campaign since December 2020.
We have not gone into any
lockdown since spring of 2020.
There has been,
we've encountered surges which has
actually led to natural immunity
in parts of our population.
Coupled with vaccine mediated immunity,
right. So we do stand much better in
terms of where we are compared to China.
Now, what worries me though is
the unchecked rise in cases in
China may spawn a new variant
which is able to dodge immunity.
So we always have to keep an eye on that.
Yeah, and we're looking
at Xbox 1.5, of course.
It seems like every new variant
more transmissible than the last.
But looking at the number of
hospitalizations, at least COVID related,
it's up close to 800 now in the state.
Which is rising not nearly where
it was this time last year.
Deaths too, starting to go up, but again,
not nearly where we were this time last year.
Is this a good news?
Relative good news again,
these numbers used to be 05 years
ago, right? So initially when XB15
was detected, we thought it would
become a nationally dominant strain.
It looks like more.
It's more of a regional strain
in the Northeast in particular.
It's driving these cases up.
Whether we've reached a plateau,
the coming weeks will tell,
but it's definitely.
Not the doomsday variant that
initially folks were afraid of.
Yeah. But having said that,
it's important that people get the
bivalent COVID-19 booster nationwide.
The booster rate continues to be low,
it's around 15%.
So which what worries me as
a physician is that vaccine
mediated immunity will wane.
So we don't want to get to a
point where these new sub variants
are able to infect and get more
people sicker than they should.
And
it's really I guess showing
us a sign that a lot of the.
The previous immunity and the
vaccination is really helping us that
China may not lead to a big surge here.
They just decided to rip the Band-Aid off,
right, a lot later, right?
You cannot avoid COVID entirely,
but now we've got this reservoir of
immunity that seems to be serving us well.
Now when you add it in with all
the other viruses going around,
I haven't looked to see just
how overburdened our healthcare
systems in Connecticut are.
I'm getting the sense they're not,
that we're still holding pretty strong.
We're able to take care of everybody who
needs medical attention, medical care.
And the good news is flu and RSV
have started to go down nationwide.
COVID has ticked up. But again,
you know those public health measures,
there are 6 counties in Connecticut
for instance that are now
recommending indoor masking.
So those public health measures are really,
really important for folks to keep
in mind as we get through this winter
season. Yeah.
And you know that's alright.
I guess last quick question,
are we already past the point
where we should expect to see any
holiday related rises or might
that still be delayed by another,
it takes two to three weeks to start seeing.
Bump. So we're still in that period
where we may be able to see an uptick
in cases based on the holidays, right.
The uptick we're seeing now,
of course, just because it's winter
and these things do tend to happen.
But so far, OK, we're,
we're managing it well and we're
doing a lot better than we were
at least this time last year.
So let's take that and go with it.
Just stay safe out there. And of course,
it's your time to get a COVID booster.
Go get that booster doctor.
Good to see you. Thank you.
Glad to see you again.
Syed Hussain from Trinity
Health of New England.