HOUSTON — The worst of the omicron wave may be behind us, but some are now concerned something called “stealth omicron” may take its place.
Stealth omicron is believed to be even more contagious than the omicron variant, which caused a record-breaking surge of cases.
Dr. Wesley Long at Houston Methodist says it’s too soon to tell how it will impact Houston.
“What we’re hearing is that it is in many ways essentially very similar to omicron in terms of severity," he said. "It doesn’t seem to be any more severe than omicron, so that’s a good thing."
So far, three cases of stealth omicron, also called BA.2, have been found among Methodist patients. The variant was first detected earlier this month.
“What we’re seeing is in some countries – like Denmark and parts of India and even in the UK – case numbers of BA.2 are growing,” said Dr. Long.
That isn’t happening in Houston yet. The Houston Health Department is now looking for the variant in weekly wastewater samples, but stealth omicron has not been detected yet.
“It’s hard to know how that will translate to what we’ll see here, based on the fact that we just a very large omicron wave and BA.2 is fairly similar to the omicron wave we just had,” Dr. Long said.
As of now, stealth omicron remains at a very low background level.
Overall, COVID cases and hospitalizations in Houston continue to fall as they have for several weeks.
Note: The following video was uploaded Jan. 21