CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The city of Corpus Christi and Nueces County are giving their weekly update on the COVID-19 pandemic locally Wednesday at 5 p.m.
SEE WEDNESDAY'S COVID-19 BRIEFING HERE:
Director of Public Health Annette Rodriguez gave the Corpus Christi City Council a look at the latest numbers during Tuesday's meeting, with the omicron variant being at the top of her radar.
Rodriguez told the council that eight omicron cases have now been confirmed in Nueces County, with 16 test results still pending.
Of the eight confirmed cases, three had been vaccinated with Moderna, three with Pfizer, and one with Johnson & Johnson. One person was not vaccinated and none of those eight had been boosted.
According to Rodriguez, we are now in the omicron wave, the fourth wave since the pandemic began. Daily totals are rising rapidly and weekly cases are also way up
The week before Christmas, Nueces county reported 377 cases, the following week, that rose to 1,373 positive cases. The first week of January we had 5,551 COVID-19 positive cases in one week.
The age group the county is most concerned about is 0-19. There are currently nine children at Driscoll Children's Hospital with COVID-19. The 65 plus age group is the best protected because they show the highest vaccination rate with 80 percent fully vaccinated.
Death rates are low in Nueces County and Rodriguez believes they will remain low. Despite this, hospitalizations are up and rising quickly.
The day before Christmas there were 25 hospitalized, but by January 10, there were 134 hospitalized with 37 in ICU.
January 9 proved to be the most confirmed single-day case count in the county since the pandemic began, with 1,049 cases.
On the vaccination front, the numbers are more on the positive side.
Since the pandemic began, there have been 199,697 vaccines administered in Nueces County. There have also been 26,355 booster shots given, but Rodriguez says that's considered low.
In total, 54.7 percent of Nueces County residents are fully vaccinated.
