{"id":1083757,"date":"2021-12-23T08:25:54","date_gmt":"2021-12-23T14:25:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=1083757"},"modified":"2021-12-24T10:10:39","modified_gmt":"2021-12-24T16:10:39","slug":"east-texas-doctor-says-omicron-is-twice-more-contagious-than-delta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=1083757","title":{"rendered":"East Texas doctor says Omicron is twice as contagious as Delta"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"TYLER — East Texas health experts say omicron is twice as contagious as the delta variant and encourage people to keep their guard up against COVID-19, according to our news partner KETK. Omicron is possibly already in East Texas. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Given the spread across the country, given that over 70% of the cases are linked to it, I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s safe to say it has arrived,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Dr. Thomas Cummins, Division Chief Medical Officer at UT Health East Texas. He added that COVID-19 cases have slightly risen in the area. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This one is probably twice as infectious, so it moves really rapidly through people and from host to host,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Cummins. Early evidence shows that the vaccines are offering protection against the new variant. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Particularly those who are triple vaccinated are really only experiencing mild symptoms, so I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m cautiously optimistic that it won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t cause a huge strain on the hospitals,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Cummins.<\/p>\n

The new COVID-19 strand causes milder symptoms than other variants. It can resemble a common cold and make people have a scratchy throat, nasal congestion, a cough and fever. It also might not affect people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sense of smell or taste. According to experts, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines provide the highest levels of protection from severe illness and hospitalization from COVID-19. Monoclonal antibodies have also been used to treat people with the virus, but they are less helpful against the omicron variant.<\/p>\n

Experts are also worried more omicron cases might arrive in East Texas soon due to travel, while hospitals are already struggling to have enough staff members to care for regular patients. They say they are feeling the toll of this pandemic after two years. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Our lack of masking, our lack of vaccination has led to a lot of pain and suffering for a lot of people and a lot of unfortunately needless deaths I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m afraid,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Cummins. He also said people can protect themselves from the new variant. They can wear masks, avoid large crowds, get vaccinated, get tested at home and have their friends and family get tested before gatherings this holiday season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TYLER — East Texas health experts say omicron is twice as contagious as the delta variant and encourage people to keep their guard up against COVID-19, according to our news partner KETK. Omicron is possibly already in East Texas. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Given the spread across the country, given that over 70% of the cases are linked to … Continue reading East Texas doctor says Omicron is twice as contagious as Delta<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":1083761,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2021\/12\/UTH-150x150.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"East Texas doctor says omicron is twice more contagious than delta","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1083757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-10 11:33:53","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2021\/12\/UTH-150x150.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"East Texas doctor says omicron is twice more contagious than delta","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1083757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1083757"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1083757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1083949,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1083757\/revisions\/1083949"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1083761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1083757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1083757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1083757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}