Dr. Ed discusses surge of COVID-19 Omicron variant

EAST TEXAS (KLTV/KTRE) - KLTV & KTRE Med Team Doctor and Infectious Disease Specialist Doctor Ed Dominguez joined us on East Texas Now answering more of your questions about COVID-19. Dominguez gave some good news on the current state of COVID-19 in the nation and what the future may look like.

Doctor Ed said, across the state, there is a decrease in the number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals.

“Our numbers are going down certainly throughout the North Texas area, most of the trauma services, in fact, I think all of them are seeing decreased cases in hospitalizations,” Dr. Ed said.

Earlier this week, Doctor Anthony Fauci, the chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden, said the full-blown pandemic phase of COVID-19 is nearly over in the United States. Doctor Ed explains what that means.

“It’s not a pandemic in that the virus is now new. It’s been around for two years; what we’re grappling with now is more like little epidemics of new viruses rather than pandemics,” Dr. Ed said.

He said, right now, there hasn’t been any major new named variant that appears to pose a significant threat in the short term.

“There were variants of interest coming out of the Mediterranean area but they have not led to the way Omicron did,” Dr. Ed said. “They haven’t led to big outbreaks so we’re not hearing European countries or Middle East countries, North African countries shutting down.”

And while COVID-19 still remains a threat, Doctor Ed said we may be able to let up in some areas.

“We can’t take our foot off the gas pedal for vaccination,” Dr. Ed said. “We can probably take it off a little bit, breathe a sigh of relief when it comes to masking and those issues. I’m still going to do it, but I don’t expect everyone else to necessarily do it.”

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