Here's why you should still take precautions as Omicron declines in Massachusetts

Recent developments in the Omicron surge have been encouraging. But experts are cautioning that we should still take precautions even as cases decline, my colleague Martin Finucane reported. 

"People just need to continue to be careful and protect themselves, their family, their community, and just bear with it a little longer," said  said Dr. Robert Klugman, an internist who is associate vice president and medical director of employee health and occupational medicine at UMass Memorial Health. "There is a light at the end of the tunnel, but we’re not quite there yet." 

The measures people should continue to engage in include getting vaccinated and boosted, wearing high-quality masks in indoor spaces, improving indoor ventilation, and getting tested when you have symptoms or have been exposed to someone with COVID-19 or are going to visit someone who is at high risk from the disease, said Dr. Sabrina Assoumou, an infectious disease physician at Boston Medical Center.