{"id":1502,"date":"2021-07-22T08:47:50","date_gmt":"2021-07-22T12:47:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=1502"},"modified":"2021-07-22T08:47:50","modified_gmt":"2021-07-22T12:47:50","slug":"are-we-at-a-point-where-youd-be-avoiding-restaurants-masking-up-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=1502","title":{"rendered":"Are we at a point where you\u2019d be avoiding restaurants, masking up again?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Question:<\/span><\/strong> What\u2019s your take on the risks in our area (MoCo\/PG Maryland)?\u00a0 Are we at a point where you\u2019d be avoiding restaurants and masking up in public again?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Answer:<\/span><\/strong> For our area, I do *not* think we are at the point of avoiding restaurants and masking up all the time.\u00a0 The risk of breakthrough infection is <a href=\"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=1453\">low<\/a>.\u00a0 That said, I still recommend masking up in indoor,\u00a0crowded settings (because it&#8217;s easy, effective, and why not!?).\u00a0 According to <a href=\"https:\/\/covid.cdc.gov\/covid-data-tracker\/#county-view\">CDC&#8217;s COVID Data Tracker<\/a>, most of Maryland, including Montgomery County (MoCo) and Prince George&#8217;s County (PG), is at &#8220;moderate&#8221; levels of community transmission.\u00a0 If that shifts to &#8220;substantial&#8221; or &#8220;high&#8221; levels of community transmission, I&#8217;d begin personally reinstating more public health behaviors (like outdoor restaurant dining rather than indoor restaurant dining, masking up when entering stores, etc.).\u00a0 Even so, my behavior wouldn&#8217;t shift to that of pre-vaccination\/high transmission times when I was mainly\u00a0staying home; I&#8217;m vaccinated now and the vaccines offer so much protection!\u00a0 If you&#8217;re interested in trends in other areas of the country, or a more in-depth state overview, check out the <a href=\"https:\/\/covid.cdc.gov\/covid-data-tracker\/#datatracker-home\">CDC&#8217;s COVID Data Tracker<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/healthdata.gov\/browse?tags=covid-19-spr\">HHS&#8217;s COVID-19 Weekly State Profile Reports<\/a>. Here are a few area stats\/trends (<strong>Figure<\/strong>):\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Cases have been increasing in both counties.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>MoCo: 185 new cases in the last 7 days, which is equivalent to 17.6 cases per 100,000, a 103% increase from the week before.<\/li><li>PG: 268 new cases in the last 7 days, which is equivalent to 29.5 cases per 100,000, a 127% increase from teh week before.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Test positivity remains low in both counties.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>MoCo: Over the last week, an average of 1.6%&nbsp; of tests have been positive, virtually no change from the week before.<\/li><li>PG: Over the last week, an average of 2.2% of tests have been positive, virtually no change from the week before.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Hospital admissions have been declining in MoCo, slowly rising in PG.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>MoCo: 14 new hospitalizations in the last 7 days, which is equivalent to 1.1 per 100 beds&nbsp; a 22% decrease from the week before.<\/li><li>PG: 29 new hospitalizations in the last 7 days, which is equivalent to 3.1 per 100 beds, a 3.6% increase from the week before.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Vaccination rates are very high in MoCo and somewhat high in PG.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>MoCo: 90.5% of the population ages 12+ has received at least one vaccine dose and 82.5% are fully vaccinated.&nbsp; &nbsp;<\/li><li>PG: 70% of the population ages 12+ has received at least one vaccine dose and 62% are fully vaccinated.&nbsp;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Figure. Maryland Trends <\/strong>(from <a href=\"https:\/\/healthdata.gov\/Community\/COVID-19-State-Profile-Report-Maryland\/2ig2-g9px\">State Profile Report<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"723\" height=\"794\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/image-5.png?resize=723%2C794&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1503\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/image-5.png?resize=933%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 933w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/image-5.png?resize=273%2C300&amp;ssl=1 273w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/image-5.png?resize=768%2C843&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/image-5.png?w=1277&amp;ssl=1 1277w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 723px) 100vw, 723px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Question: What\u2019s your take on the risks in our area (MoCo\/PG Maryland)?\u00a0 Are we at a point where you\u2019d be avoiding restaurants and masking up in public again? Answer: For our area, I do *not* think we are at the point of avoiding restaurants and masking up all the time.\u00a0 The risk of breakthrough infection [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[100,60,17,47,46,64],"tags":[55],"class_list":["post-1502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-masks","category-risk","category-risk-reduction","category-states","category-trends","category-vaccines","tag-maryland","has-post-thumbnail","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1502"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1504,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502\/revisions\/1504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}