Omicron is now the dominant strain in Miami-Dade County

DORAL, FL – Omicron is now the dominant strain in Miami-Dade County, surpassing the delta variant in just a couple of weeks.

According to data collected by new genomic surveillance data, omicron is behind the majority of COVID-19 cases in the county as the variant grew from a tiny fraction of hundreds of samples taken the first week of December to nearly three of every four samples gathered last week.

This information matches with that found by NOMI Health, which is the company hired by the county to conduct testing, vaccination and sequencing. They revealed 76% of 504 COVID-19 samples taken on Dec. 14-15 belonged to the omicron variant.

That percentage has been growing steadily. On December 10 to 13, 64% of 378 samples collected were of the omicron variant, while of the 373 samples gathered the week of December 1-5, only 1.3% were of that variant, according to county records.

And Miami-Dade is also experiencing  a spike in positive COVID-19 cases, which stand at 10% after dropping to roughly 1% a month ago, according to data.

All of this, encouraged County Mayor, Daniella Levine Cava, to reinstate an emergency order last week, requiring hospitals to provide COVID-19 numbers and bed availability.

“It is absolutely astonishing how contagious this variant has proven to be,” Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told the Miami Herald.

It has been contagious also across the United States ever since it hit the country at the beginning of December when the first case was spotted in California, which subsequently motivated President Biden to unveil new travel restrictions.

Omicron is now the dominant strain in Miami-Dade County and also of the United States where last week it accounted for 73% of the new infections, federal health officials said.

Photo by: Pixabay.com