HOUSTON — COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations have been declining steadily for the last two months.
However, early this week, the Texas Medical Center’s COVID dashboard showed a spike in new cases.
Houston hospitals went from an average of 315 new cases a day to more than 2,500 new cases a day.
“Everything points to the fact that this was a data issue and not really a true spike,” said Dr. Luis Ostrosky, UTHealth Houston/Memorial Hermann. “Most of the data is actually from before January, but it shows up now and caused this alarming spike. We’re just not seeing that in the Texas Medical Center. We’re seeing slow and steady volumes.”
Since home COVID-19 tests are so popular now, wastewater testing has become the most accurate tool in tracking the virus nationwide.
The Houston Health Department (HHD) is seeing a slight increase at nine water treatment plants, but 30 are still plateauing or decreasing.
“Overall, the positivity rate is still very low. The wastewater is just a little uptick in that,” said Dr. Loren Hopkins, HHD’s chief environmental science officer.
So we can VERIFY doctors are not seeing a COVID-19 spike in the Houston area. Numbers remain very low.
However, health officials are keeping a close eye on the BA.2 variant, which has been detected in the wastewater. The variant now makes up 24% of new cases among patients at Houston Methodist.
Doctors hope the milder variant doesn’t lead to a rise in hospitalizations.