In terms of COVID levels, anyway.
The COVID-19 viral load in Houston’s wastewater has sunk to its lowest point in seven months as the city puts the latest wave, driven by the highly contagious omicron subvariant BA.5, in the rear view.
The wastewater levels are 71 percent of what the Houston Health Department detected during the July 2020 wave, which the city uses as a benchmark, according to Texas Medical Center data published Tuesday. The COVID hospitalization rate and positivity rate also continue to decline steadily.
Harris County last week dropped its COVID community level from “medium” to “low,” which recommends staying up to date on vaccinations and testing if you have symptoms. Scientists are looking to other countries for signs of what comes next.
“Our history has typically been a winter surge,” said Dr. Luis Ostrosky, chief of infectious diseases with McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston. “So let’s enjoy it while we can.”
Several new omicron off-shoots have been detected in the United Kingdom, India, Singapore, Denmark and Australia, according to the journal Nature. BA.5 continues to dominate cases in the United States, though one subvariant, BA.4.6, has gained some traction and now makes up roughly 12 percent of cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Ostrosky urged people to get their updated booster shots, which better target omicron variants.
The dashboard is here, and you can see it as a graph here. COVID from the omicron wave peaked in the wastewater in July, but it was at almost ten times the level as it had been in July of 2020. It is now at 71% of the July 2020 levels, which is much better in so many respects. Get up to date on your boosters – I got my bivalent booster the other day – and get a flu shot (got one of those as well, at the same time), because there’s concern this could be a bad flu season. And even with these levels going down, hopefully for the foreseeable future, it’s still a good idea to wear a mask in crowded indoor spaces. Might help you avoid catching a winter cold, too.