Roberts weighs in on latest COVID statistics

TYLER — NET Health’s George Roberts brings us up to date on the improving COVID picture in East Texas. Roberts notes that cases continue to go down in his survey area, and he’s hopeful that will continue in coming days. Among other things, hospital patient numbers dropped to 93 from 94 this past Monday and have fallen off significantly in recent weeks. Gregg County continues to lag behind other area counties, but Roberts isn’t too concerned, reiterating that the area-wide picture remains strong.

Meantime, though, officials continue to monitor the BA-2 variant. Roberts says according to the latest information from the CDC, BA-2 now makes up 8.3 per cent of cases nationwide, up from 3.9 per cent earlier in the week. As for the region that includes Texas, Oklahoma, and several other states, the number is 6.4 per cent. As far as how serious BA-2 might be, Roberts says some research was done Friday morning, and it appears to be more contagious than the earlier omicron variant. But he tells us “the jury is still out” as to whether it will create “a more difficult course” than we’ve seen with the earlier variant. Roberts says overall, we never know when the picture might change — so he continues to urge vaccinations. For more information on COVID-19 in East Texas, click here.