- If you're in the mid-Atlantic or Southeast US, you should be masking in crowds. Even by the lax standards of the CDC's community levels map, everyone in metropolitan New York City, New Jersey, Delaware, and much of Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina should be masking (not to mentions portions of other southern and Midwestern states.) https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#county-view?list_select_state=all_states&list_select_county=all_counties&data-type=CommunityLevels

- However, we should not expect that to continue. XBB.1.5 continues to grow rapidly in the US, and in states where it became predominant last month, it caused significant rises in infections and hospitalizations. (It could be that lower post-holiday travel and crowds will prevent a rapid surge, but that will only slow, not prevent this variant's spread). https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#variant-proportions

- We must take the long-term risks of repeated COVID infections more seriously. A new study found that “Long COVID is associated with all ages and acute phase disease severities, with the highest percentage of diagnoses between the ages of 36 and 50 years, and most long COVID cases are in non-hospitalized patients with a mild acute illness.” It concludes, “a significant proportion of individuals with long COVID may have lifelong disabilities if no action is taken.” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-022-00846-2

- To add more to that, another recent study found that people with COVID-19 have continued risks AFTER the acute state. Those who are 21 days or more post-diagnosis have a 40% higher risk of cardiovascular disease and a 500% higher risk of all-cause mortality. https://academic.oup.com/cardiovascres/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cvr/cvac195/6987834

@augieray No, *unvaccinated people* infected with one of the original strains of the virus are at this risk. Please stop spreading misinformation.

@_Jordan That is fundamentally false. Many studies have found that vaccinated people, particularly those with waning protection 4-6-months or longer after their last jab, are at risk. That one line in this one study does NOT suggest that vaccinated people aren't at risk.