Bernard Camins, MD, Medical Director for Infection Prevention at the Mount Sinai Health System, discusses how to stay safe in your day-to-day routine and clarifies new guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
How safe is public transportation? Are there any new measures New Yorkers should take?
As a New Yorker, I take public transportation all the time. I take both Metro North and the subway. I believe that it’s safe, otherwise I wouldn’t be taking them. I agree with the guidance that masking should be mandatory in every form of public transportation. Masking has made an impact in keeping us safe through the entire pandemic. So, if we all continue to wear face coverings while taking public transportation, we will continue to be safe.
How safe is it for parents to send their kids to school?
All schools in New York City, private or public, should be following the guidelines set forth by the New York City Department of Education and the recommendations of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. If I had a child who was school age, I would feel safe sending them to school based on those guidelines. I would also follow all the recommendations for parents made by those organizations. The New York City Department of Education summarizes much of the guidance here.
Are there any additional measures parents can take to protect their children?
It’s important that if your child is eligible to be vaccinated, you should vaccinate your child as soon as possible against COVID-19. And now that certain age groups are eligible to get the booster, parents should take advantage of that as well.
Have the recommendations changed in terms of what type of mask people should wear?
Because Omicron is more infectious, there have been some reports in the media that cloth masks may no longer be appropriate or adequate insofar as protecting us from this particular variant of COVID-19. But right now, we don’t have enough data to be sure. If people want to be better protected, they should first make sure their mask is well-fitted. You may want to consider double masking in which you would wear a medical or surgical mask underneath a cloth mask. This would simulate, or be equivalent to, a KN95 mask which is 95 percent effective in filtering respiratory droplets. But no matter what mask you wear, it will be ineffective if you don’t wear it properly—meaning that it should cover your nose and your mouth.
What should I do if I come into close contact with a person who is positive for COVID-19? What defines a close contact at this time?
If you haven’t received your booster shot, and you have a close contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19, you should quarantine for five days, according to new CDC recommendations. Afterwards, you should wear a mask in public for another five days. The CDC also recommends that you should get tested five days after the exposure. A high-risk contact or high-risk exposure is defined as being within six feet of someone who tested positive for COVID-19 for more than 15 minutes, and this could be cumulative over a 24-hour period. If you have received your booster shot, you do not need to quarantine following an exposure, but you should wear a mask for 10 days after the exposure and get tested at day 5 if you still do not have symptoms, according to the CDC. This is why it is important to get a booster shot as soon as you are eligible.
Is there anything else that has changed recently that people should know?
One thing that I want to highlight is the new CDC recommendation that if you were found to be infected with COVID-19, you only need to isolate for five days. To correctly count these five days, you should consider the date of symptom onset as Day Zero. If you are asymptomatic, Day Zero would be the date of your positive test. On the day after Day Five, you can leave isolation as long as you keep your mask on when you’re in public. And you should avoid places where you would have to take your mask off, such as restaurants.