WisEye Morning Minute: COVID-19 Update

As reported by WisPolitics.com, state health officials have issued a public health advisory warning the omicron variant of COVID-19 is spreading in Wisconsin and is expected to "cause a rapid increase in disease activity" in the coming weeks. Officials have identified 19 cases of the omicron variant in Wisconsin so far, but only about 5 percent of confirmed positive cases from PCR tests are being sequenced to determine the specific strain. During a media briefing, Dr. Ryan Westergaard, chief medical officer for the DHS Bureau of Communicable Diseases, said it's difficult to estimate how many cases of the new variant are circulating due to this small sample size. DHS Secretary-Designee Karen Timberlake indicated the state is not considering reopening a temporary field hospital to help ease the strain on hospitals nearing the brink of overcapacity. "While we were very fortunate to have the field hospital and certainly did have numbers of patients need to use it last spring, what we're finding is that certainly patients prefer to receive care as close to home as possible ... the issue really is staffing," she said. "It's less about brick-and-mortar facilities that are needed." Meanwhile, the latest seven-day average for new COVID-19 cases in Wisconsin was 3,294, the DHS dashboard shows. Despite the presence of omicron in the state, the delta variant continues to be the dominant strain amid the ongoing surge. Watch the full program: https://wiseye.org/2021/12/20/wiscons... Subscribe to Morning Minute: https://wiseye.org/newsletters/ #Wisconsin #COVID19