A growing number of states
meantime are dropping their mask
mandates as infection rates dip,
but top scientists say look we are
still in the midst of a pandemic,
so let's bring in Doctor
David Winter from Baylor.
Scott and White Health a good to see you.
I am curious,
doctor winter about your take when
you hear of States and particularly
schools across the country starting
to relax these mask requirements.
Well, it's a very important question, Sonia.
'cause there's still plenty of that
coronavirus out there right now.
You know, I think if you're young,
healthy and vaccinated, you hang around.
People like that.
They may not be that important,
but think of this.
If you have elderly,
frail relatives or those you hang
around with their immunocompromised
who have chronic medical
conditions like heart failure,
kidney failure,
then it makes sense to be cautious
because there's a lot of virus
out there in masking distancing.
I can make a difference in
spreading to loved ones.
So the latest numbers doctor
winter in Texas are promising
cases and hospitalizations.
Of course, as we know are down,
but they are certainly not zero.
At what point do you tell your patients look?
You can leave your masks behind,
especially if, as you just mentioned,
you're vaccinated and boosted.
I think some of us are
still real used to them,
and wearing them seems kind of weird,
but at the same time we don't really
know who's interacting with whom
outside of our smaller circles.
Yeah indeed. And you know,
I remember last year when we
all were masking all the time,
I didn't diagnose a single case
of influenza or a common cold.
Even allergies were less,
so they do more things than
just prevent COVID transmission.
I think they still have a role
here and it's personal choice.
Whatever you want to do,
but you're you may be spreading the virus
to people you don't want to spread it to,
or you may get it yourself
and get in trouble.
Interesting right now,
cases are down in the hospital, Sonya,
but there's still a lot of folks.
Hospitalized with COVID and
the average age is age 42.
Lot of young folks there in the
vast majority of those folks in
the hospital are unvaccinated.
So, Doctor Winter, let's talk about
this new research linking COVID
and heart disease in older adults.
Explain older adults and then
to me this sounds concerning.
Yeah, to me also this just came out
money this past Monday in a very
respected journal called Nature and
what they studied in this report was
US veterans who had kovid in the past
and they found that down the road.
If you had COVID you had an increased
chance of heart disease and the
more severe your COVID illness was,
the higher the risk.
And this is one study we need many
more studies to look into this,
but it is certainly is a concern.
I'm not sure if it's going to
hold up right now,
but it's a concern with
long term effects of COVID.
You don't want to get it.
If you don't have to.
OK, with regard to testing,
we're used to these nasal swabs.
How do you feel now about
saliva and throat swabs?
And we talked about this months ago.
Are they more accurate now and then?
Which tests do you think are most reliable?
Well, certainly if you want to detect if
somebody is infected with the virus you
wanna test where the highest concentration
is Harvard and in the case of Omicron
variant that's typically in the nose.
Now a small minority have a very very
severe throat or bright red throat,
so tests there makes some sense.
But here's another caveat, Sonia.
These tests are rapid.
Tests were designed to be
used in a certain pH level,
and the pH level in the nose is
different than in the throat,
so most people still say the best way
to test now with these antigen tests.
The rapid test indeed is still in the nose.
Yeah, this is making sense.
The pH levels to me.
Now that you say that because a lot
of people go well, I don't feel sick,
but I still tested positive,
OK, real quickly.
Doctor Winter give us an
update on the stealth omicron.
This sub variant BA2,
is it spreading in America?
Does it appear problematic for us?
Good question. It doesn't seem
to be spreading yet in America,
but in Denmark it's taking over the
entire country, so it's out there.
What it seems to be from our
current knowledge is it seems
to be more transmissible,
more contagious, at least overseas.
It is right now with limited data
we don't see that it's causing more
severe illness or more deaths,
but it's still very early.
Vaccines seem to work against it,
so we're going to keep an eye on this,
but right now no big cause for alarm,
at least as of today,
all right, Doctor Winter.
Good to see you.
Thank you as always, we.
Really appreciate it.
Thank you, alright.