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COVID-19 cases in Texas have been climbing steadily for the past few months, , according to data from the Texas Department of State Health Services.

While that鈥檚 significantly lower than the omicron surge in early 2022, which averaged 35,000-50,000 cases a day in the state, public health officials are still concerned about the increasing cases.

Juan Rodriguez, chief epidemiologist and assistant director for , said the last week of December showed the county had about 1,000 new cases, 鈥渢he highest it鈥檚 been in quite some time.鈥�

鈥淏ut it pales in comparison to just 12 months ago, the winter before that, where we had almost 15,000 cases a week,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t is trending up, and we do see a new subvariant in the U.S. that seems to be quite contagious, and we鈥檙e monitoring to see where this goes.鈥�

That subvariant of omicron, named XBB 1.5, makes up about a fourth of all cases in the U.S. right now, according to the . The World Health Organization reports XBB might have a than other variants.

鈥淚t is growing quickly,鈥� Rodriguez said. 鈥淚t does seem to be very transmissible, so that can be a bad mixture for higher cases.鈥�

Other parts of North Texas, like Dallas and Tarrant counties, saw similar increases in December.

Chief Epidemiologist Russ Jones from Tarrant County Public Health said the county鈥檚 COVID-19 level was set to 鈥渉igh鈥� after a 40% increase in hospitalizations during the week of Dec. 26^th. He reported admissions increased from 16 per 100,000 people to over 24 per 100,000 peope.

Mary Altaffer/AP

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AP

Dallas County Health and Human Services director Philip Huang said cases in the county started to increase after Thanksgiving, with more than .

鈥淲e鈥檙e definitely waiting to still see the full impact from New Year鈥檚 gatherings,鈥� Huang said.

Still, Huang said the community has come a long way since last year鈥檚 surge.

鈥淚t is fortunate we have these new tools available, like the vaccines, we just need to take advantage of those,鈥� he said.

Rodriguez and Huang both said targeted Omicron boosters, and more access to , means there are more options for people who do contract the virus. Rodriguez still encourages people to test and stay home if they have COVID-19-like symptoms.

鈥淚t鈥檚 2023, and this started in 2019,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 understand people have some apathy towards it, and are ready to be over it, but it鈥檚 not over with us.鈥�

Katherine Hobbs contributed to this report.

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