Post-holiday COVID surge likely as omicron spreads, Tarrant County health says
While the omicron variant of COVID-19 spreads rapidly across the U.S., Tarrant County and Texas as a whole have yet to feel the brunt of the surge that is in full-swing in other regions.
But that surge will soon hit Tarrant County, public health director Vinny Taneja said Tuesday.
The county is already seeing the early signs of a spike — the seven-day average positivity rate has been ticking up, and hit about 8.5% on Saturday. The rate has been climbing since early November, when it dipped just under 6%.
For now, coronavirus hospitalizations are relatively stable. As of Monday, the county had a seven-day average of 230 covid-positive patients; that metric has been approximately level since early November. Hospitalizations and deaths, though, always follow behind positivity rate — deaths naturally follow behind hospitalizations, which in turn follow behind positive tests.
And, combined with holiday travel and gatherings, that means that North Texas is likely to see a COVID surge in January.
“Things are starting to happen,” Taneja told the county commissioners court. “All signs are that post-holiday we’re going to be back up into a high spread.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that as of Saturday the omicron variant made up 92% of COVID cases in a region that includes Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico and Oklahoma. The new variant has rapidly overtaken the delta variant, which now accounts for about 8% of cases in the region, the CDC estimates.
Omicron has become the dominant variant nationwide, too, although not quite as dominant as in the Southwest. Nationwide, the CDC estimates that 73% of covid cases where from the omicron variant.
The CDC has not yet officially concluded whether the omicron variant spreads more quickly than the delta variant, or whether it causes as severe of illness. However, medical experts across the country and the world have said there is evidence that the omicron variant is significantly more contagious than the delta variant. A late November study in South Africa found that the new variant spread in that country at least twice as quickly as the delta variant.
And on Monday, officials at the World Health Organization said is too early to conclude that omicron causes milder infection, despite early reports of that possibility. The variant has led to breakthrough cases — that is, COVID infections in fully vaccinated people — across the country, although vaccinated patients have a much-reduced risk of severe illness or death.
Taneja said Tuesday that Tarrant County does not conduct sequencing to determine the prevalence of the different covid variants. He said the county instead relies on the CDC estimates.
With the variant circulating in the community, Taneja urged North Texans to take the same tried-and-true precautions that public health experts have recommended throughout the pandemic. He asked residents to wear masks and socially distance whenever possible, to avoid large gatherings and — above all — to get vaccinated and boosted.
And with the holidays around the corner, Taneja also urged residents to consider the vaccination status of family and friends before gathering with them, and to consider gathering outside.
“It is time for caution,” Taneja said. “As luck would have it, the weather is supposed to be super nice, so if y’all can move your Christmas gathering to an outdoor setting ... that would be a Christmas gift for me.”
The new and rapidly spreading variant may push some Texans toward first-time vaccination, as well as booster shots, Taneja said. Medical officials reported a similar trend when delta spread across the state, convincing some holdouts that it was time for added protection.
“As the surge kicks on and news comes out that there’s a new variant, there is a flurry of activity,” Taneja said. “There is a group of folks that get motivated and get vaccinated. But, it comes and goes in small pockets.”
Tarrant County has a slightly lower vaccination rate than Texas as a whole, which in turn has a lower vaccination rate than the nationwide average.
According to the state tracker, about 65% of Tarrant County residents 5 and older have received at least one dose of the vaccine. That’s compared to about 71% across the state and about 77% nationwide. Tarrant County data also shows that booster doses are lagging — about 250,000 county residents 5 and older have received a booster dose, which is 12% of the age group.
