Q&A with Ballad's Jamie Swift on the state of the pandemic, a new variant and what's next

As coronavirus infections and hospitalizations decline to levels not seen since before the delta surge, people may be wondering whether the two-year fight against this virus may finally be over.Recently, Ballad Health's Chief Infection Prevention Officer Jamie Swift spoke to the Press about the current state of the pandemic, the continued importance of getting vaccinated and boosted and what might happen next, particularly as the BA.2 variant becomes more prevalent.Note: Answers have been edited for length and clarity.Obviously the pandemic isn't over, but a lot of people might feel that way with cases and hospitalizations down. It feels a lot like it did before the delta surge. What do you think when you hear or see people acting like the pandemic is over? It's a balance. I think we obviously are in a state right now that the spread is minimal and that's good. I think, you know, a lot of it is really making sure right now that you're as protected as you can be with vaccines. There's still masking recommended for those high-risk folks and situations. (People should consider) that, and (recognize) that we don't really know what's going to happen.And so I can't say, "Is the pandemic's over? Is it not? Is it endemic?" We just don't know yet. I think it's OK to have that breather, and if you're vaccinated and boosted and protected you have that little bit of freedom right now — understanding that, you know, we may go back to masking and more social distancing and strict measures in the coming months if the virus returns again.Speaking of masking, knowing where our transmission levels are locally, when and where would you recommend people wear a mask? I really think following (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) guidelines is important, and I think you need to look at those really close (contact) indoor facilities where there's a lot of people that you may not know or interact with on a daily basis, and really understanding the risk. I mean, if you're vaccinated and boosted it's a lot easier to take your mask off right now — you're more protected, and you have a less likely chance of spreading the disease should you become infected.It really is about considering their personal risk. If you're immunocompromised, if you have a child that can't be vaccinated, if you can't be vaccinated for medical reasons, then you still need to realize that, yes spread is down, but there are still cases every day. Worldwide there's still many deaths everyday, and so it's something you've really got to take into consideration as you're making this decision.During the omicron surge there was a lot of discussion about the quality of masks people were wearing. Is that still important right now with cases down? Or are people fine with the cloth masks we used so much during the early part of the pandemic? The better the mask the better protection. If you're in one of those immunocompromised group, can't be vaccinated group, certainly a cloth mask is better than nothing, but I would encourage people to have, at least, a surgical mask.As I'm sure you're well aware, cases are on the rise in some European countries, and it's likely we'll see an increase in cases in the U.S. in the next few weeks. How should people here prepare for an increase in new cases? You're asking for my crystal ball. It really depends on what happens with this virus. We absolutely are keeping a close eye on BA.2, and on what's happening. Do we expect an increase in cases? Most likely, yes. Is that a definite? No. As you well know, this virus can oftentimes decide what it's going to do regardless, and so we're keeping an eye on it.My message for preparing really doesn't change. Now is the time to get vaccinated and boosted, that is the absolute best thing you can do to prepare for whatever this virus might bring us in the future. Also be willing and understanding that if we start to see those cases start to increase, that some of our restrictions may come back. We may really start talking about masking, social distancing, all of those things.This region has been particularly hard-hit over the last two years of the pandemic, particularly since the delta surge last summer. About half the population here is vaccinated, and at least some people have some level of passive immunity from a previous infection — is that going to be enough for us to blunt a future surge? The higher we can get our vaccine levels, the more prepared we are for the next surge, whatever it may be. We know that, obviously, there is some protection from those previous infections, but also know that doesn't seem to last as long as protection from the vaccine. It's really important, until we have a full understanding on exactly how long that protection from previous infection lasts, to go ahead and get vaccinated and boosted. And, it appears that immunity from a previous infection may even give different protections based on what strain you had. We don't know if omicron is going to give as much protection as other strains did.There's a lot of studies and people asking the same question, so ultimately it takes you back to the main message: get vaccinated, get boosted and follow the recommendations as they come out based on what's currently happening in the region."You mentioned BA.2 earlier. How worried are you about BA.2? We're keeping our eye on it. We think we'll see some impact. Is that going to be very mild? Is that going to be a quick surge in cases? There's just so much unknown right now. We had a much higher infection rate with omicron, and so what we've really got to understand is, was there protection from an omicron infection? And if so, how long is that going to last? There's just a ton of unknowns.Experts seem split on whether or not BA.2 is something to be concerned about. It seems you're not super worried about it at this point, but do you think it's something people should be concerned about? It's kind of hard to really put myself on a scale. Is it keeping me up at night? No. Am I keeping an eye on it? Absolutely. It's one of those things where, if we don't get good protection from omicron infection, if we don't get our vaccine levels up and this comes, knowing how infectious it is, and more infectious than omicron it could be a concern. At this point it falls into my bucket of, keeping a close eye on it, reading everything I can get my hands on about it and making sure we're keeping it as a topic of conversation in our command center, that we're watching, that we look for those early signs so we can let the community know, hey this could be an issue.When the alpha, delta and omicron variants were looming on the horizon, did those keep you up at night? Yes, yes and yes. All of those, absolutely. We could see what was coming with those and knowing that we did not have even a level of immunity from previous infection that we could potentially have after omicron because it infected so many. Each of those were distinct, very different, and at the time were extremely concerning. This one, a lot has happened and we're in a different place. We've got a lot of immunity from previous infection, we do have more vaccines, there's treatments available. We're not in the same place we were in 2020 and that a good thing.The pandemic has been one of those things where you don't really know what is going to happen until it starts to happen, and that makes it a difficult thing to plan for. It is. That's the nature of a virus, and that's the nature of the pandemic. We have worldwide circulation of this virus still going on and we know that, and the potential for either BA.2 or future variants to emerge tomorrow. It's something that we've got to keep our eye on, stay ahead of and make the best of the opportunity we have now while spread is down to really have those conversations, to talk about vaccines, to answer questions of people who are still on the fence and really try and move our region to higher vaccine coverage.What's your message to the community right now? I think overall it's: We're in a different place, but it's not the place, I don't think yet, to say we're completely out of this. Be willing to understand that we may have an increase in cases if we see BA.2, we may ask for more restrictions to go back into place and for people to put those masks back on. But, I always have to end with, the absolute best thing you can do right now is to get vaccinated and get boosted. We have not seen the uptake of boosters in this region that I would like to see. We've seen the significant benefit of boosters, so I encourage people if they haven't gotten that booster to go do that.