Houston Healthcare Chief Medical Officer discusses new COVID variant

Health experts don't know the long-term effects of this variant, but statistics show it's involved in nearly 30% of current COVID-19 cases.

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – A new COVID variant, entitled XBB. 1.5, a sub-variant of Omicron, is impacting people across the country.

Health experts don’t know the long-term effects of this variant, but statistics show it’s involved in nearly 30% of current COVID-19 cases.

Dr. Dan Stewart, Houston Healthcare’s Chief Medical Officer explained the potential risks of the new variant,

“XBB is said to be more highly contagious then the other ones, but at least at this point in time, less virulent than certainly the Delta variant was last year, so we haven’t seen the rise and hospitalizations and deaths like we saw a year ago,” he said.

Medical officials say the new sub-variant does not seem to be any more severe than previous COVID variants.