Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University Public School of Health, outlined four tools for domesticating the coronavirus pandemic.
Jha he broke it into a thread on Twitter this weekend, noting that “We have all the tools we need to end this pandemic.”
The four tools Jha outlined are vaccines, quick tests, indoor air improvement, and masks, and he said using the first three correctly would mean the last one shouldn’t be used much.
“If we deploy the first 3 aggressively and intelligently, we will only have to use the 4th in moderation,” Jha wrote.
In a community with high vaccination rates and ubiquitous testing, infection rates would be low, Jha said.
“In this context, would you go to an indoor concert without masking if everyone were vaccinated, everyone had a negative antigen test before the concert and the concert hall had great ventilation / leakage? I would,” he wrote. Jha.
The United States is considering an increase in COVID cases, especially in places where fewer people are vaccinated.
Experts say the relatively high vaccination rate in Massachusetts should help.
In Massachusetts, which has one of the highest vaccination rates in the country, health officials reported another 1,703 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 10 new deaths on Friday.
Massachusetts COVID metrics, followed on the Department of Public Health’s coronavirus interactive dashboard, are much lower than spring ones, and while all major ones have risen from their lowest points, some have fallen in recent years. weeks.