HOUSTON — Federal health officials are closely watching the BA.2 variant of COVID-19, which now makes up half of the new cases in the Northeast.
But in Houston, COVID-19 cases are as low as they’ve ever been. There’s no sign of an increase yet in the city’s wastewater.
Dr. Wesley Long at Houston Methodist says the BA.2 variant has been in the area for a while at very low levels.
“Right now, we’re not seeing a lot of BA.2 in Houston. We’re seeing 1% to 2% of cases of COVID are BA.2, and that’s been fairly constant over the last few weeks really,” said Long.
He says the BA.2 omicron variant is extremely contagious, so it may make up a higher portion of cases in Houston soon, but that doesn’t mean the overall number of cases will rise.
Dr. Long says the spread of COVID-19 seems to vary a lot by region lately. The low amount of BA.2 locally is an example of that.