Courtesy/LACCOUNTY News:

Los Alamos County has Issued its latest COVID-19 Community Newsletter.

This issue covers The Epidemiology Corner – COVID-19 Update, New Testing Locations/Options, LANL Research News, Survey & Results, COVID-19 data and more.

Nationwide Hospitalizations Show Encouraging Declining Trend As Variant Proportions Gradually Drift:

For the week ending Aug. 27, CDC estimates that Omicron variants BA.4/BA.5 accounted for 92 percent of U.S. cases nationwide, with BA.5 alone accounting for 89 percent of cases.

The newest emergent variant, BA.4.6 increased in prevalence over the past week from 6.7 percent to 7.5 percent nationwide. The central Midwestern states, which include Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, were the first to see growing proportions of BA.4.6 and are still seeing the highest percentage, with the variant now making up 17 percent of samples compared to about 16 percent in the prior week.

These data indicate that BA.4.6 is slowly increasing in prevalence, but at a much slower pace than that seen with prior Omicron variants. Read more here.

To read the full newsletter, click here.