There's a lot of COVID-19 circulating in the Bay Area right now, which is why one doctor says public health officials are making a unified recommendation on indoor masking.
"More than double the national average of new cases in San Francisco, for example," UCSF infectious disease specialist Dr. Peter Chin-Hong said. "And the second reason is that the variant that we have now is more transmissible than before."
Chin-Hong said there are a few reasons why infections continue to rise locally. More people are traveling and San Francisco has a reliable testing infrastructure, so the city can monitor rising and falling COVID-19 rates pretty accurately.
While infections are increasing in the Bay Area, they're not yet close to the spike earlier this year and hospitalizations are not rising as fast right now either.
Chin-Hong said he doesn't think counties will require indoor masking again because of high vaccination rates and the availability of therapeutics now.
"Work with your health care provider, figure out where you can get it, who's going to write the prescription, and, most importantly, whether or not there are any drug interactions," he said.
He said the therapeutic is most effective early into a COVID-19 infection.
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