Following the discovery of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus in Harris county, leaders and health experts in Dallas County said they are concerned and monitoring the situation.
Cases of the Omicron variant have now been recorded in 19 states across the country, with more reports expected from other states.
Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, Dr. Peter Hotez, told FOX 4 News in an interview that there is a possibility that the country will be facing a “twin epidemic.”
“I think, first of all, Delta isn’t going away anytime soon. It’s highly transmissible,” Hotez told FOX 4 News. “We’re now in for a winter Delta wave again.”
Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins and other county leaders also expressed concern about the new variant during a Tuesday meeting at the Dallas County Commissioners Court.
Jenkins spoke of the possibility of the Omicron variant already spreading through many urban areas that are not yet recorded. Jenkins also mentioned that the individual with the first recorded case in Houston does not have any travel record and must have gotten it from somebody in the country.
Dallas County Health Director Dr. Philip Huang was present at the Commissioners Court on Tuesday and told leaders that South Africa is currently facing what Dallas County faced at the beginning of the Delta variant.
“If you look at the proportion of Delta and how Delta just took over everything, you think early on there were a few cases,” Huang said, according to the report. “But then it’s 99% of the cases now are Delta.”
Huan added that South Africa is now seeing the Omicron variant taking a significant number of the country’s COVID-19 report.
Dallas County leaders are now actively pushing for people to take the COVID-19 booster shots.