As families across Connecticut are preparing to travel for the upcoming holidays, Dr. Ulysses Wu, the chief epidemiologist and System Director of Infectious Diseases at Hartford Healthcare, has a message -- get vaccinated against COVID-19, get boosted and wear face masks.
“I'm trying to dial the message back about omicron because there's a variant that we should be really scared of right now and that's delta. So we shouldn't be behaving any differently from delta to omicron because they're both dangerous at this point. We should still be getting vaccinated, we should still be getting our boosters, we should still be masking, we should still not be putting ourselves in risky social behaviors,” said Dr. Wu.
Dr. Wu said it is those three things that will help keep your family safe.
“People are tired about hearing about this. So, if you take out the vaccination, and you take out the masking, then let's just talk about our risky social behaviors,” said Dr. Wu.
Get Connecticut local news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC Connecticut newsletters.
“If we're going to go to a party, without a mask, we don't know if everybody's vaccinated, our chances of getting COVID, whether it's omicron or delta is going to increase, and that depends on everybody's own personal risk assessment," Dr. Wu said.
Travelers boarding planes ahead of the Christmas holiday at Bradley International Airport said they are taking every precaution they can to stay healthy.
“We’ve been masked, we’ve had our shots and our boosters and we’ll keep our distance when we can,” said Dennis Lobo, a traveler at Bradley Airport, said.
“It's always a little bit stressful, but we're masking up you know. With kids, trying to keep them from touching everything, it's gonna be fun. But, it seems like everything's pretty sanitary. We've got a lot of wipes and a lot of sanitizer, so we're prepared,” said Jessica Engster, a traveler at Bradley.
