Cal Football Outbreak Portends ‘New Normal’: UCSF Expert

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — Expect more COVID-19 outbreaks such as the one that led to the cancellation of this week’s Cal-USC football game, and don’t blame vaccines that have proven to be remarkably effective for not being perfect.

That’s according to a leading Bay Area health expert who authored an opinion piece in The San Francisco Chronicle this week.

The outbreak that infected 44 students and staffers at a program that boasts a 99 percent vaccination rate is no cause for alarm, Dr. Monica Gandhi wrote.

The outbreak led the postponement of Saturday's eagerly anticipated matchup against USC.

“…clusters of mostly asymptomatic cases among the vaccinated, like what we’re seeing at Cal, are neither cause for concern, nor unexpected with a virus that will become endemic,” Gandhi wrote.

“They are an emerging part of our new normal. And we need to start recognizing — and more importantly — speaking about them as such.”

In Gandhi’s view, case counts, a key metric in measuring the impact of the coronavirus, are less useful in areas with high vaccination rates such as the Bay Area.

Not only are vaccinated people less likely to contract the virus, but that they are also less likely to spread it, Gandhi wrote, noting a study showing people who developed symptomatic delta breakthrough cases shed the virus for a shorter period – the result of their immune system kicking into overdrive once it recognizes the protein spikes.

In her view, young people have experienced onerous restrictions amid the pandemic despite being at lesser risk of severe illness to reduce the risk to others, and a new vaccine-fueled paradigm shift warrants a new approach.

“We owe it to them to return their lives to normal, especially when that was the promise of public health officials in the context of vaccine mandates at many colleges and universities,” Gandhi wrote.

“Football (an outside activity) was shown to be safe and lead to no transmissions in a study from last year, prior to vaccinations and in areas of high community transmission. It is too late for this Cal-USC football game, but we need to think of outbreaks differently from now on in the context of the vaccines and live our lives accordingly.”

Read Dr. Monica Gandhi’s opinion piece in full in The San Francisco Chronicle