CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — City and county leaders are bracing for the Omicron variant as it continues to spread across the country.
At this time, it has not been confirmed in Nueces County, however Public Health Director Annette Rodriguez says her team is expecting to see this variant make its way here soon.
Annette and other leaders sending a strong reminder to residents not to panic but prepare and the health district has all hands-on deck in preparation for this variant. They’re encouraging everyone to get vaccinated, get their booster shots and they're sending positive COVID-19 cases to the State Department of Health Services for genome sequencing.
Genome sequencing is a way to tell what variant someone has so if the test is positive that sequencing will determine if the person had delta or even Omicron.
Rodriguez says 5 percent of positive cases in Nueces County are sent off to the DSHS for that genome sequencing however that 5 percent comes from the testing that happens only by the health district.
"We had three out and then we had two more that we sent yesterday so we have a total of five, but we've received seven back now we had to receive 6 and they're all Delta,” said Rodriguez. “So, we still know that right now currently our dominant strain is Delta,"
Rodriguez says it takes between two to four weeks for results to come back and they are expecting more results by the end of this week or early next.
Officials with the state health department say the CDC has looked at about 6 percent of all positive cases in Texas over the past four weeks.