Philadelphia Health Department officials are expected to provide an update on the city's COVID-19 response Monday, and there is a chance the mask mandate would go back into effect.
"The City's COVID Response Levels are set to move to Level 2: Mask Precautions should the number of cases continue rising like they have been. The Health Department knows that this feels quick, but we want to head off this wave before it gets going," a spokesperson said.
As doctors predicted, COVID-19 case numbers are ticking back up due to a rapid spread of the latest omicron variant BA.2.SEE ALSO:"The test positivity numbers are rising in Montgomery County and Philadelphia City. The number of cases per day are rising a little bit," said Dr. Darren Mareiniss, with Einstein Medical Center's Department of Emergency Medicine.
Doctors say the BA.2 variant is more infectious than the first omicron strain but isn't more deadly. They also say this new variant makes up for 60% of infections in Maryland, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania."I would say that these numbers are an increase but they are certainly nothing like what we saw in late December and early January," he said.
As COVID-19 precautions fluctuate, Mareiniss said everyone needs to remember, that this is a long haul. "Pandemics occur with local epidemics. Local surges up and down and once the wave goes down we can have less caution," he said.