CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Local health officials are warning that in a worst-case scenario, our region could soon see hundreds of people becoming infected with the omicron variant of COVID-19.
It's one that our health officials are hoping doesn't become a reality, and they are once again urging everyone to get vaccinated and to wear masks, based on their certainty that omicron is already here.
Dr. Chris Bird is in charge of the Public Health District's informatics and modeling team and said that in his research on Omicron, he and his team have laid out two scenarios.
One is where the community gets vaccinated and starts wearing masks and the variant is controlled. The other scenario, is where that doesn't happen and we begin to see anywhere from 1,900 to over 2,700 cases each day.
The good news in all of that is that he doesn't believe folks will end up in the hospital at the same rate as they did in previous surges.
“I'm projecting that we're not going to see hospitalization like we did with Delta,” Bird said. “It looks like more maybe slightly good news. I don't know how to classify that it's good news that we're going to have more people in the hospital, but not as likely many people in the hospital as we have had in previous waves."
Millions of people traveled all across the country over the past few days for the Christmas holidays. Many of those folks are starting to return from those areas like Houston and Dallas, where Omicron is spreading quickly.
Public Health District Director Annette Rodriguez says she's already looking at the county's proposed plan to try and provide services to residents when the expected Omicron surge hits here.
“I'm actually looking over the continuity of operations plans for the county and I'm looking at them,” Rodriguez said. “The city hasn't given me theirs yet, but I'm looking at theirs because we really need to figure out a way that when people do get sick, and we know they're going to be sick, and we know they're going to have to be out for the 10 days, that we have to be able to continue to serve our community."
Dr. Kim Onufrak is the Clinical Director for the Health District and said while it appears that Omicron might be a mild variant, it can still prove to be deadly.
"It's COVID, right now the symptoms appear to be mild, but it can still go down into your lungs and once it affects your lungs and attacks your lungs and other organs, it's about the same as Delta," Onufrak said.
Dr. Onufrak said that the unvaccinated are helping Covid to continue to replicate.
She added the solution is to get vaccinated and boosted. She said if those folks got vaccinated, it would greatly help to keep them from coming down with a severe case or even dying.
For the latest updates on coronavirus in the Coastal Bend, click here.
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