HOUSTON — Two new COVID subvariants have been detected in Houston, according to doctors at Houston Methodist.
Doctors at Houston Methodist say they’ve found 83 cases of BA.2.12 and 3 cases of BA.2.12.1.
These are the so-called stealth subvariants of omicron, which is the strain of the virus that caused a record number of cases last winter.
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While they're causing increased spread in New York and parts of Europe, cases in Houston remain very low.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the BA.2 omicron subvariant is now responsible for the vast majority of cases in the U.S.
There has been a slight increase in cases in recent weeks, driven by the BA.2 strain, with daily confirmed cases nationwide rising from about 25,000 per day to more than 30,000.
Those figures are an undercount since many people now test positive on at-home tests that are not reported to public health agencies.
Note: The following video was uploaded on March 29