Cases of the omicron variant of COVID-19 have dropped almost as quickly as they exploded, allowing many mitigation measures to be relaxed. But Allegheny County health officials said Wednesday that this doesn’t mean COVID-19 is over.
“This is not a farewell to the pandemic. We are not claiming victory or shifting to treating COVID like we do influenza,” said Dr. Debra Bogen, director of Allegheny County Health Department.
Officials confirmed Wednesday that the highly transmissible omicron subvariant, BA.2, has been detected in Allegheny County. Bogen said that 6% of new positive cases were the subvariant as of this week. She said it has slowly increased from 2% a few weeks ago.
“It’s still relatively [a] small amount in our county, and it’s been rising very slowly,” Bogen said. BA.2 has driven an outbreak of COVID-19 in China but has not yet caused a surge in the United States.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that BA.2 subvariant makes up 23% of circulating variants.
For now, officials can only detect the presence of subvariants through traditional testing data. That could make monitoring subvariants difficult as the county begins to rely more on wastewater surveillance to track COVID-19.
“We do detect variants in our wastewater; it just doesn’t specify [subvariants],” Bogen said. “Those tests are still under development.”
Allegheny County, and elsewhere in the United States, has moved toward testing wastewater as more residents use at-home testing. It's up to an individual to share the result of an at-home with the county.
The CDC is helping municipalities build out wastewater surveillance systems across the country. Bogen said as the system is developed, Allegheny County will analyze wastewater the same way.
The health department is preparing to launch an online wastewater monitoring dashboard with Carnegie Mellon University, but Bogen said there is not yet a timeline for when residents will be able to access that dashboard.
The health department launched a new vaccine dashboard Wednesday to track vaccine and booster rates among county residents. According to the data, 71.5% of residents over five have been fully vaccinated.
Bogen and County Chief Executive Rich Fitzgerlad were reflective at Wednesday’s weekly COVID-19 press conference, which took place almost exactly two years since the first case of the virus was confirmed in Allegheny County.
“None of us really knew where this was going,” Fitzgerald said. “[But] we’re not done. There are things still that are going to happen. There [are] variants that can continue to happen. We still want to get people vaccinated.”
Bogen and Fitzgerald acknowledged the 3,200 county residents who have died of the virus, which averages to about four people per day. “A family lost every 24 hours,” Bogen said.
Bogen said the pandemic has taught public health officials many lessons but there is still much work to do.
“We also must acknowledge that we do not have all the answers,” Bogen said. “Important questions remain… what will new variants bring? How much will vaccines and natural immunity protect us in the coming months and years? What about long COVID syndrome?”
In a move that reflects the current slow pace of the pandemic, the County Executive and Health Department director announced Wednesday they will end their regular COVID-19 press briefings for the foreseeable future. The department will continue to issue weekly reports on case counts and hospitalization and death data.
“As we move forward and look to the future, the health department will continue to analyze data, provide guidance and do our best to anticipate trends,” Bogen said. “What that looks like will continue to evolve.”
