The area is once again experiencing a summer surge in COVID-19 cases, but luckily so far those cases have not translated to an uptick in hospitalizations, according to Dr. Mark Shelly, medical director for infection prevention and professor of medicine for Geisinger Medical Center.

Shelly has been an infectious disease doctor since 1992, and with Geisinger since 2018, where he came after working at the University of Rochester.

“I can remember when Geisinger would have 1,000 new cases a week, and we’re now down to around 10 to 20 new cases detected,” he said, adding that there are many cases that go unreported due to the use of at-home tests.

“It’s still here. We still have patients in the hospital with COVID, but it’s a small slice,” Shelly said.

“Right now we’re dealing with the flu, RSV and a few other things, and COVID is among those, but certainly isn’t the majority,” he said.

The continued presence of the virus is largely due to the fact that it is an RNA type of virus, Shelly said.

“It changes over time, because it’s not very good at making exact copies of itself, which means that some of the copies are worthless, and some of the copies are different enough,” he explained.

“And we can tell that, genetically, they’re different, but they don’t seem to be acting any different,” Shelly said of why severity of disease has not increased with any of the recent variants.

Due to a mixture of previous infection, vaccination and, in many cases, both, it can be difficult to distinguish viral symptoms from the common cold or even allergies. However, there are two telltale signs to help distinguish allergies from some other type of infection.

“For all those that have suffered from allergies, almost none have had a fever, so fevers are something that I keep a watch on,” Shelly said.

“The second piece that is important is if there’s any element of shortness of breath, beyond your nose feeling a little clogged. I’m talking about not being able to walk up the stairs and feeling winded,” he added.

For those who do test positive, the antiviral Paxlovid is available, but must be started within five days of onset of symptoms.

“I’m quite comfortable prescribing an antiviral for diagnosed conditions, because we’ve been so used to using it,” Shelly said.

To minimize the risk of infection, Shelly advises people to keep a watch on communal viral loads and adjust their behavior accordingly, which could include masking.

“Masks have value, and they will be part of our lives and our accessories during certain parts of our lives,” he said.

People feeling unusual symptoms should also consider masking up in order to reduce the chances of spreading any illness to others, Shelly said.

“If I got a tickle my in throat, I don’t know if it’s my allergies or not, so I just put a mask on, and if you see somebody with a mask on, just think, they have a tickle in their throat, and they’re being nice and thoughtful,” he said.

And while a well-fitted n95 or Kn95 mask works best, Shelly stressed that anything preventative in nature is better than nothing at all.

With summer still in full swing, Shelly said that outdoor events are relatively safe from viral transmission.

“The outdoors is a tremendously protective place, and it would be very hard to to infect another person at a distance any farther than a few inches, or for whatever reason, coughing straight on them,” he stressed.

By far, the greatest arsenal against infection, and particularly, severe disease and death is available vaccines, Shelly stressed.

“There is some impression out there that we don’t know much about these vaccines, but we do know a lot about this vaccine. Because we had a pandemic, we have given lots of doses, so we’ve been able to look very closely at what any side effects are, and we haven’t seen big, huge problems that outweigh the risk benefit,” he said.

In fact, mRNA vaccines are nothing new, having first been developed out of the fear that Ebola would spread worldwide.

“They are a fantastic way to present this to the body, to get immunity, to keep us out of the intensive care unit,” he said.

But with mRNA vaccines being new to those not in the medical field, some may be hesitant to risk unknown future side effects, a fear Shelly said is misguided.

“I don’t know of any vaccine that subsequently has any crippling long term effect that we’d have to wait ten years to be sure that we didn’t have. We get most of that information up front in the months after giving it, and we’ve been giving a heck of a lot of vaccine for four-plus years,” Shelly said, noting that he continues to line up every year while encouraging others to do so as well.

“There are two reasons to get vaccinated. One is to protect yourself, and the other one is sort of to make things tougher for the virus to get around,” he stressed, calling it a “community statement.”

Ultimately, public health is what we do with and for ourselves and for each other,” Shelly said.

Although the vaccine can be beneficial for all, Shelly said there are several groups who should be at the top of the recipient list, including those who are, live or work with someone who is immunocompromised, as well as those who suffer from asthma or are considered obese.

“COVID showed itself early on to be really deadly with the advancing of age, so anybody who’s over 65 is currently in the recommended group this year, to get a vaccine along with your flu vaccine,” he said, adding, “both are important to prevent hospitalization and death.”

“If you yourself are at a higher risk, or if people around you are at higher risk, join the community effort of raising your body’s immunity by getting the updated vaccine,” he urged.

The updated formula to tackle more recent variants is expected to be available starting in mid-September.

Although the goal with any vaccination campaign is for the population to gain herd immunity, Shelly warned that achieving this feat for COVID-19 does nothing in preparation for the next pandemic.

“We need to be cautious about the next bird flu that becomes a human flu or the next other virus. We still need to watch for these things, because the planet is crowded enough that a virus can get around pretty quickly. We all know that now,” he said.