CHESAPEAKE, Va. — Cities in the Northeast are seeing an uptick in COVID-19 cases, prompting Philadelphia to re-instate its indoor mask mandate. It's the first major city in the U.S. to do so.
Local health officials are attributing the bump in cases to a new variant, but here in Hampton Roads, cases are still low.
As summer approaches and people are returning to their everyday lives, health officials are still warning that you shouldn’t completely let your guard down.
They now have their eye on the BA.2 Omicron subvariant.
Health experts do not believe BA.2 is any more severe than Omicron, however, they do believe it is 30% more transmissible.
"The virus has shown it’s able to evolve and mutate over time," said Dr. Lisa Thanjan with the Virginia Dept. of Health.
The variant has become the dominant strain across the country and Chesapeake Health Dept. Public Health Emergency Manger Jerry Tucker attributes this to their slight uptick in cases.
"We do anticipate that we’re going to see cases continue to increase. The good news is thus far, we’re not seeing an increase in severity. Meaning to say we’re really not seeing a spike in hospitalizations or deaths," said Tucker.
For now, all of the seven cities remain at a low level of transmission, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Tucker said they have their eye on case numbers, new hospital admissions and patient bed usage.
"At this point, really nothing is being triggered to ramp us up in terms of looking at indoor masking or ramping up vaccination efforts," Tucker said.
He said it’s still vital to get vaccinated.
"What we’re still seeing is this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated," said Tucker. "The majority of the hospitalizations, the majority of the severe cases and the majority of deaths are attributed to not being vaccinated."
Last week, Gov. Glenn Youngkin said seven million Virginians have gotten at least one dose of the vaccine.
An updated report from the Commonwealth Fund estimates the COVID-19 vaccines have so far prevented 2.2 million deaths, 17 million hospitalizations and 66.1 million additional infections.
Across the seven cities, health departments have tapered down their vaccine and testing capabilities because of dropping demand, but Tucker said if the need arises, they can ramp back up again.