COVID-19 once again a health threat here

According to the University of Nebraska Medical Center, there are currently more than 10,374 patients hospitalized in the United States per week with 15 percent of those being in intensive care. For the week ending Nov. 4, the positivity rate was 8.5 percent and is thought to have risen since that report was made. When test positivity is above 5 percent, transmission is considered to be uncontrolled.

Since many are using the home tests, the results are not being reported to public health agencies or the sick are not testing at all thus the official case counts may be an underestimate of the actual prevalence of COVID-19.

There are multiple variants of the virus circulating nationally. Currently, the dominant variant nationwide with HV.1 with 29 percent of the cases, followed by EG.5 with 21.7 percent of cases and FL.1.51 with 93 percent of the case.

The original omicron variant appears to be gone now.