C6 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, MARCH 27 , 2022
may have some level of immunity
to BA.2 because of the similarities
between the two, health officials
said.
Those who haven’t been infect-
ed by omicron or who are immu-
nocompromised are more vulner-
able, though being fully vaccinat-
ed will help guard against serious
illness.
“We think we’re going to see
much fewer breakthrough rein-
fection cases with people who’ve
already had BA.1,” said Brandy
Darby, an epidemiologist with the
Virginia Department of Health,
using the scientific name for the
original omicron variant. “But for
people who were infected with
alpha or delta or some of these
previous lineages and have not
been infected yet with omicron,
they could experience reinfection
with BA.2.”
Health officials are watching
for signs of an outbreak as even
more prevention measures fade
away, including pandemic work-
place safety requirements in Vir-
ginia that the state’s Worker Safe-
ty Board voted to remove last
week.
Local health departments say
they are preparing to again ramp
up vaccinations and testing if new
infections begin to increase
sharply.
“We’re very much focused on
what’s coming next,” said David
Goodfriend, health director in
Loudoun County, which is en-
couraging residents who have
preexisting conditions or are oth-
erwise vulnerable to wear masks
in crowded areas.
“If there is enough of a concern
where mitigation strategies make
sense to implement, we want to be
able to provide our local leaders
with that information as quickly
as possible,” Goodfriend said.
Costi Sifri, director of hospital
epidemiology for the UVA Health
system of health-care facilities in
Virginia, said it’s still too soon to
know how BA.2 will affect the
VIRUS FROM C1
region.
Community transmission re-
mains low. But it appears that the
drop in infection rates has begun
to level off, Sifri said, adding that
he also doesn’t believe a dramatic
spike in infections akin to the
omicron surge is likely to occur.
Nonetheless, it’s vital for local
and state health departments to
be equipped with the resources
they need to deal with a surge if it
happens, Sifri said, expressing
concern over $15 billion in pro-
posed new coronavirus aid that
has been stalled in Congress dur-
ing federal budget negotiations.
Last week, the Biden adminis-
tration said it doesn’t have
enough money to buy a possible
fourth shot for everyone after
Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna
filed for emergency authorization
for another round of inoculations
— for those 65 and older for thePfizer-BioNTech vaccine, and all
adults for Moderna.
“Hopefully, Congress will rec-
ognize that we’re not out of this
pandemic yet,” Sifri said. “We still
need the resources to battle this.”
With testing numbers down
and, in particular, fewer people
seeking polymerase chain reac-
tion (PCR) tests that are publicly
reported, officials are monitoring
the virus using different data sets.
In Maryland, the state Depart-
ment of Environment is analyzing
the concentrations of coronavirus
found in local wastewater sys-
tems, a process that can detect an
outbreak five days earlier than
clinical testing data would show.
Mark Shaffer, the department’s
spokesman, said the tool is more
critical now that testing has most-
ly transitioned to at-home tests
that are typically not publicly re-
ported.The state’s genomic surveil-
lance shows that BA.2 represents
about 21 percent of new cases in
Maryland. But the wastewater
monitoring system has not sig-
naled a serious outbreak ahead so
far, Shaffer said.
Even so, reports of new infec-
tions are steadily trickling in.
In Montgomery County, coun-
cil member Andrew Friedson (D-
District 1) announced Thursday
that he had tested positive for the
virus.
“I have mild symptoms, thanks
to being vaccinated and boosted,”
Friedson said in a statement post-
ed to Twitter.
Though 86 percent of Mont-
gomery County residents are fully
vaccinated — the highest rate in
the region — county health offi-
cials said they are working to do
more in advance of another coro-
navirus wave. Of particular con-cern are Latino and Black chil-
dren in the county who’ve re-
ceived booster shots at lower
rates than White children, health
officials said.
James Bridgers, the county’s
interim health director, said the
health department is working
with Montgomery County Public
Schools, which dropped its mask
requirements at the beginning of
March, to get all students boosted
before spring break begins April
6.
Students must be tested before
being allowed back into class-
rooms, officials said.
Montgomery has continued to
offer free testing to residents who
are uninsured. To avoid the test-
ing crunch that characterized the
early weeks of the omicron surge,
the county is also distributing
at-home rapid test kits to resi-
dents, officials said.
Sean O’Donnell, the county’s
emergency preparedness manag-
er, said Montgomery would rein-
state precautionary measures in
some higher-risk areas of the
county, such as nursing homes or
schools, if cases of new infection
dramatically escalate.
“This wouldn’t be a universal
mandate,” he said, but a “focused
implementation” probably in-
volving guidance rather than reg-
ulation.
A District health official said
during a call with the D.C. Council
on Friday that there are no immi-
nent plans to reinstate the city’s
indoor mask mandate that was
lifted last month, even though
cases have begun trending slight-
ly upward in D.C. during the past
week.
“We’re carefully watching case
rates, understanding if there’s a
time and place to insert mitiga-
tions,” Patrick Ashley, a senior
deputy director with the D.C. De-
partment of Health, told the
council. “[People] need to make
sure they’re continuing to engage
in safe practices, social distanc-
ing, being aware of their specific
medical conditions.”Ashley said the city is focusing
more on “syndromic” surveil-
lance — noting if residents are
increasingly buying medications
like cough syrup to treat them-
selves. D.C. health officials have
also begun analyzing concentra-
tions of the virus in wastewater,
he said.
Some of the closest scrutiny is
inside the region’s schools, which
have been reporting a stream of
new cases since students have
had the option of not wearing
masks inside the classroom.
Arlington County Public
Schools recorded about 193 new
cases since March 1, officials said.
The district is encouraging mask-
wearing and vaccinations for stu-
dents and staff, along with asking
families to get tested and keep
students at home when they’re
sick.
Meanwhile, the mask mandate
for the Prince George’s County
school district remains in place.
The Maryland district has said
it doesn’t plan to drop its mask
requirement until the county —
one of the hardest hit by the
coronavirus in the region —
reaches a full vaccination rate of
at least 80 percent. As of Thurs-
day, about 73 percent of Prince
George’s residents were fully vac-
cinated, said Meghan Gebrese-
lassie, a school district spokesper-
son.
Goodfriend, Loudoun County’s
health director, said the unpre-
dictable nature of the pandemic
over the past two years shows that
local officials need to stay flexible
about doing what it takes to pre-
vent the virus from spreading
further.
“The hope is that this becomes
a seasonal issue,” where preven-
tion measures can correspond
with periods when people are
interacting more indoors, Good-
friend said. “But covid has sur-
prised us before.”Michael Brice-Saddler, Hannah
Natanson, Nicole Asbury and Perry
Stein contributed to this report.BA.2 variant expected to become dominant strain locally
JIM LO SCALZO/EPA-EFE/SHUTTERSTOCK
Visitors to the National Air and Space Museum wait to enter this month. Access to the D.C. museum,
which is set to close this week through the fall for a renovation, has been limited during the pandemic.way, where the People’s Convoy
has been camped out since arriv-
ing from Adelanto, Calif., on
March 4, the rhetoric is different.
Some members brag about be-
ing part of the Jan. 6 Capitol
insurrection. Signs at the speed-
way have included the logo for the
violent Three Percenters militia
movement. Men have worn the
Proud Boys insignia and have
flown the Confederate flag. There
are supporters who tout QAnon
conspiracy theories, including
false claims about satanic child-
sex-trafficking rings, and some
who have urged citizen’s arrests of
President Biden and Vice Presi-
dent Harris.
Convoy organizers have denied
assertions that the group is full of
racists and white supremacists.
In the District, residents and
organizers are standing up to
them. They repeat that “D.C.”
means “Don’t Come,” flip off pass-
BIKE FROM C1 ing trucks, yell at drivers to “go
home” and post about reporting
trucks that fail to display DOT
numbers. The DC Antifascist Ac-
tion has tweeted about the convoy
members, warning the local com-
munity where the truckers and
their supporters are headed.
Adler, a D.C-based lawyer
working on environmental and
social issues, had heard about the
trucker convoy driving through
the nation’s capital and thought
the honking that Saturday after-
noon might be them. Soon, he saw
about a half a dozen bobtail
trucks decorated with American
flags and blaring their horns.
When normal, ever-present
D.C. traffic split up the group just
past Dupont Circle on Connecti-
cut Avenue, Adler veered in front,
pedaling at a self-estimated 4
miles per hour.
At one point, he said, a nearby
D.C. police officer asked him what
he was doing, and Adler replied:
“I’m allowed to take a lane, right?”
He was.
Approaching Farragut Square,
Adler continued onto 17th Street,
passing the Eisenhower Execu-
tive Office Building on his left,
when a right-wing live-streamer
who was at the Capitol insurrec-
tion pulled up next to Adler and
peppered him with questions.
“What are you doing?” he asked
Adler. “You got a bunch of trucks
behind you.” Adler replied that he
couldn’t hear the questions over
the honking.
He continued along 17th
Street. As he pedaled by the
E llipse, someone outside Consti-
tution Hall stopped to record the
video that has since been shared,
retweeted and celebrated across
the District.
By the time 17th Street met
Constitution Avenue, Adler saw
D.C. police officers waving convoy
trucks through a red light and
decided it was time to go home. “I
just felt I had said what I needed
to say,” he said.‘People power’
It was fitting that Adler’s pro-
test, which lasted about 15
m inutes, would be on a bike. His
great-grandfather Ted Ryko was
an endurance biker, setting an
Australian cycling record in 1914
while riding across the desert,
according to Adler’s mother, who
is chronicling Ryko’s history. In
1915, she says, Ryko won a “Slow
Bicycle Race,” in which the goal
was to cross the finish line last,
traveling as slowly as possible
without falling.
Adler, who doesn’t own a car,
uses his electric bicycle as his
main mode of transportation. His
wife and their two children, ages
11 and 14, bike, too. He had been
one of the proponents of the pro-
tected bike lane now on 17th
Street and continues to advocate
for safe streets.
And so, even after his sponta-
neous act of resistance, Adler felt
frustrated: about the truckers’
method of protest, about the die-
sel fuel they were burning
throughout the District, about
the road risks in a city that, last
year, saw its highest number of
traffic deaths in more than a
decade.
“If we want to have a planet
that is here, just and equitable for
children around the world, then
we’ve got to look after the climate,
and we’ve got to act, here in the
United States, in Washington,
D.C., now,” Adler said. “The
streets are not safe — especially
not safe for our children, espe-
cially not safe for our elderly, so
it’s not safe for anybody. We need
to be working to fix that.... A
10-ton diesel truck, that’s not an
expression of a person’s views.
That’s a problem. It’s an intimi-dating prop.”
His 88-year-old neighbor Elea-
nor Traylor loved the video of his
one-man protest.
Traylor, the former chair of the
English department at Howard
University, was born in Thomas-
ville, Ga., and grew up in Atlanta,
worshiping at the historical
Ebenezer Baptist church when
the Rev. Martin Luther King Sr.,
was pastor.
She is disgusted, she said, by
the way convoy members and
anti-vaccine activists co-opt the
language of the civil rights move-
ment to cast themselves as vic-
tims of a tyrannical government.
Some have compared mandates
to slavery and the Nuremberg
Code, created after World War II
in response to Nazi medical
atrocities.
Traylor shakes her head when
thinking about it. Her parents
and grandparents, she said, en-
dured racial hatred in the South.
Adler’s Jewish grandmother sur-
vived the Holocaust in Hungary.
“Even though he was brought
up in Australia and I in South
Georgia, we bear the same hatred
of fascism and love of justice,”
Traylor said. “We’ve disagreed on
the bike lanes, but we agree per-
fectly that there’s no such thing as
racial superiority.”
Local activists are also pushing
back on far-right groups coming
to D.C. The memories of the
weeks following the 2020 presi-
dential election are still fresh,
when self-proclaimed militia
members, loyalists to former
president Donald Trump, violent
extremists groups and white na-
tionalists targeted the nation’s
capital to support Trump’s base-
less claims of election fraud.On Jan. 6, 2021, the pro-Trump
mob attacked the U.S. Capitol — a
violent assault on democracy that
has left residents, federal employ-
ees and Capitol staffers still grap-
pling with a shared trauma.
Neha Misra, 52, is angered by
the truckers who demean D.C.,
which nearly 690,000 people call
home, by labeling it all a “swamp.”
Misra said the insurrection
made her feel unsafe. While she
used to take her 10-year-old son to
protests with her, she no longer
does.
“They come into town and
think that this is their city, and
they could just take it over be-
cause of whatever their version of
democracy is,” she said.
So when she saw the cyclist
video, she was thrilled — especial-
ly to see the biker was Adler, her
friend and neighbor.
“I’m a Brown woman with her
nose pierced,” Misra said. “... I
wish I was on the bike next to him,
but I’m not sure I would have felt
safe.”
Adler said he hopes that people
moved by the video take action in
their own communities. And he
had some specific suggestions:
advocate for protected bike lanes,
ask elected representatives about
plans to restrict oversize vehicles
on residential streets, support
voter-registration efforts and cast
your ballot, too.
“If you drive through our
neighborhoods in your 10 ton die-
sel with your air horn blaring, and
your toxic message — expect to
meet peaceful resistance,” Adler
wrote to The Washington Post.
“D.C. is always open to protest,
but these are our streets too....
people power is always stronger
than horsepower.”The Bike Man becomes symbol for residents exhausted, alarmed by c onvoy
MATT MCCLAIN/THE WASHINGTON POST
Daniel Adler outside his Dupont Circle home on Tuesday. “A 10-ton diesel truck, that’s not an
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