DENVER (KDVR) — The City of Denver said stealth omicron has been detected in both wastewater and human specimens.
The Denver Department of Public Health and Environment said they are not concerned about a surge in cases that we saw with previous COVID-19 variants.
DDPHE said trends in the data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate there likely won’t be a surge in cases as seen with the previous variant because of environmental factors, low overall transmission, and community behavior.
There may be an increase in the percentage of stealth omicron cases, but DDPHE said they anticipate low transmission because of increased vaccination rates and natural immunity from recent infections.
For the last week of February, only 7% of all cases reported in Colorado were the stealth variant of omicron. Variant data is delayed two weeks because of the time required for genome sequencing of positive specimens.
Current COVID-19 case rates remain low in Colorado, with the state’s positivity rate below 3%.