| In this week's edition of the Covid Q&A, we look at how people can best protect themselves against the new mutation of Covid-19. In hopes of making this very confusing time just a little less so, each week Bloomberg Prognosis is picking one question sent in by readers and putting it to an expert in the field. This week's question comes to us from Phil in Forest Hill, Maryland. Since new strains of Covid-19 appear more contagious than previous mutations, Phil wonders if employing the same precautions such as mask wearing, hand washing and social distancing will be enough to protect himself. Phil asks:
Do our same defenses work against the mutation as effectively?
Two newly identified variants of Covid-19 first identified in the U.K. and South Africa — known as B.1.1.7 and 501Y.V2, respectively— do indeed seem to be more transmissible and are spreading rapidly around the world. "The same defenses from before — masking, hand washing, distancing — all work but are even more important now," said Bertha Hidalgo, an epidemiologist at the University of Alabama.
"While it hasn't yet been shown to be 'more deadly' per se, it's important to note that the faster it moves through the population, the greater the number of people who will need hospitalization at once, the greater the odds of an increased number of people who die at once," she said. "The best way to get ahead of it is to slow or stop transmission ... that is, stop it from infecting even more humans."  Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg Previous studies have clearly shown that efforts including masking and social distancing help tamp down spread of the virus. One study published in September, for example, found that in a survey of more than 1,000 Maryland residents, people who frequently used public transportation were more than four times as likely to have had Covid-19 than those who didn't. Those who reported practicing strict social distancing were just one-tenth as likely to report ever being SARS-CoV-2-positive.
Hidalgo said that, unfortunately, there isn't yet much data about how those mitigation strategies might be affected by the new variant. So it's best not to let our guard down. "We need to be even more vigilant about ventilation indoors and masking at all times in and outdoors," she said. "The advice is generally to be more adherent to public health recommendations than ever."
(In a previous newsletter we explored how these new variants might affect vaccines. If you'd like more information on that, you can find it here.)
Thanks to all of you for writing in this week! Next Sunday, we'll be answering the best question we receive again. So if you have any, we want to hear from you. Submit your question via CovidQs@bloomberg.net--Kristen V. Brown
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