Health Director: COVID-19 cases may stay high a couple of weeks

Lynn Walker, Wichita Falls Times Record News
·2 min read
Wichita Falls City-County Health Director said Tuesday COVID-19 numbers may stay high for a couple of weeks before dropping off.
Wichita Falls City-County Health Director said Tuesday COVID-19 numbers may stay high for a couple of weeks before dropping off.

After a deadly three-day weekend from COVID-19, Wichita County caught a break in fatalities Tuesday. No virus-related deaths were reported. However, hospitalizations crept up to 89 and new case counts remained high at 386.

Wichita City-County Health Director Lou Kreidler told city councilors Tuesday things may get worse before they get better.

"Last week was a record-breaking week for us in Wichita county -- and not in breaking records that are good to break," Kreidler said. "We had our highest three-day average of Saturday, Sunday and Monday. We had our highest one-day report of cases, which was last Friday, and we also had our highest positivity rate that we've seen since we've begun seeing cases with COVID."

Kreidler said the county has sent out samples for sequencing and while no results are back, "We know that 93 percent of case sequenced in Texas are Omicron, so we believe Omicron is here," she said.

She said the variant spreads very quickly and very easily.

"I believe that's why we're seeing the increase in cases that we're having."

She said the Northeast is seeing a plateau or decrease in number of cases.

"What we're seeing in African and other countries is that Omicron increases very rapidly and then you'll see that same decrease on the end, and it's been about a month. So I would expect for our case numbers to continue to be high for the next couple of weeks and then to see a decrease," Kreidler said.

She said the federal government now has a website where people get free COVID-19 tests sent to their homes. The address is COVIDTests.gov. It can take seven to 12 days to get the kits in the mail. The tests are rapid antigen tests, not PCR, with results in about 30 minutes.

In Wichita Falls stores home tests are hard to find, Kreidler said.

More: Want a COVID-19 home test? You're out of luck

"They're sold out almost immediately," she said.

This article originally appeared on Wichita Falls Times Record News: Health Director: COVID-19 cases may stay high a couple of weeks