particularly for students and even more so for younger students. let me explain. we ve been talking about this idea for some time. it s now official from the cdc. but they re specifically saying for all students, elementary school students, they can maintain just three feet apart when mask use is universal regardless of what is happening with community transmission. that s for elementary school students. so that s going to be a big deal. but they also say, kate, that for middle school and high school students, they should still maintain at least six feet apart if the community tr transmission in their community is high. so making a difference between older and younger students. for all elementary schools, regardless where you live in the country, guidance is now going to be three feet. but if you happen to live in a community where community transmission is high still, at about 41% roughly of counties in the united states do have high transmission, if you live in one of those
Of a five-day isolation period instead of a ten-day, is what, just a misfire? are you aligned with that philosophically or you don t like it? no, i actually feel very strongly that this entire pandemic we should have been doing everything we could to shorten the isolation period by using information from a rapid test to ask the question, before i leave isolation, am i infectious? and maybe that happens for some people on two days, maybe that happens for some people at 12 days. so we can shorten the isolation period from ten days, but we should do it with evidence that we are no longer infectious, and the reason is that the people who have been diagnosed and know that they are infectious, and are five days out from that diagnosis are still probably the highest risk people for onward tr
Robust protection against tr transmission and protection. it seems these new variants may be able to get around that near absolute protection. so it is worrying from that perspective. so let me ask you here, because obviously, you know, the severe death rate is better. it s statistically extremely significant to have a protection rate go from 98 to 93. that s a very significant drop, but it s still very good, right? i get that. right. the question is, if someone is vaccinated, they get a breakthrough case. could they be at risk for long covid symptoms, and how do you context contextualize this, professor, with the wall street journal saying this is in most of the population?