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Omicron cases continue to surge in Lane County, but continue to be mild in severity

A sign points the way to a Lane County Public Health COVID-10 vaccine clinic at the Lane Events Center in Eugene on Dec. 22, 2021.
Rachael McDonald
/
KLCC
A sign points the way to a Lane County Public Health COVID-10 vaccine clinic at the Lane Events Center in Eugene on Dec. 22, 2021.

Over the holiday weekend, Lane County Public Health tracked 2,526 new cases of COVID-19. That’s an increase from last week for daily cases.

But the good news, according to Jason Davis with Lane County, is that there have not been any new deaths. There are 53 people currently hospitalized with the virus. Davis said we need to learn to live with the continued presence of the virus in our community.

“We need to take personal accountability in how we’re going to prevent spread, how we’re going to lessen impact overall when we see surges in our community,” he said. “And, still, the main way to do that is to through vaccination and getting a booster shot. Those individuals are just not ending up in the hospital.”

Public Health expects the omicron surge to start receding in February.

“As we move from pandemic to endemic, meaning that COVID is part of our daily life, part of our community,” Davis said. “We will expect to see surges from time to time. But the impact those surges will have will be less and less.”

Davis said omicron isn’t having as much of an impact on individual health as we’ve seen with previous variants. But there needs to be a constant vigilance about preventing infection.

Copyright 2022 KLCC.

Rachael McDonald is KLCC’s host for All Things Considered on weekday afternoons. She also is the editor of the KLCC Extra, the daily digital newspaper. Rachael has a BA in English from the University of Oregon. She started out in public radio as a newsroom volunteer at KLCC in 2000.