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New COVID variant causing concern as positivity rate rises in Miami-Dade, Broward

MIAMI ā€“ A public health emergency has been renewed by the White House as COVID-19 cases are once again on the rise.

A new variant called XBB.1.5 is quickly spreading.

ā€œThis particular version is much more contagious and has a lot more immune evasion than all the previous versions of SARS COVID-2, which is why itā€™s taking over,ā€ said FIU infectious disease expert Dr. Aileen Marty.

At this point, itā€™s hard to say what percentage of new COVID cases are linked to the new variant, but numbers show, whether itā€™s because of the new variant, or because of holiday gatherings, numbers are up significantly.

Prior to Thanksgiving in Miami-Dade County, the positivity rate was 9 percent and in Broward County, it was 9.3 percent.

Fast forward to now, with the data ending Jan. 5.

In Miami-Dade, the positivity rate jumped to 18.8 percent and in Broward to 19.6 percent.

Alix Zacharski is the nurse manager for the Intensive Care Unit at Jackson Health.

ā€œMost definitely the numbers have gone up in the last month,ā€ she said.

At the ground level, Jackson Health is caring for 94 patients with COVID-19.

Of those, 40 came to the hospital specifically to get COVID treatment and of those 40, 10 are in the ICU.

ā€œIn honest truth, we know that COVID is very difficult. Itā€™s really unpredictable for some folks, especially when you have an underlying condition,ā€ said Zacharski.

Her biggest concern is because South Florida is an international tourism hub, she fears the numbers will keep going up, which means possibly another surge.

Itā€™s quite bad timing as the country is already seeing a shortage of nurses and doctors.

But itā€™s not all bad news.

ā€œThere is nothing that is indicating at this time that it is more likely to cause severe disease than any other type,ā€ said Marty.

RELATED LINK

Miami-Dade Public Health Dashboard - Jan. 9


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