Boone County remains in red zone for COVID transmission as BA.5 variant spreads

BOONE COUNTY −  It’s been one month since Boone County COVID-19 transmission levels moved from the green to yellow zone, and one week since moving from yellow to red zone, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But since transmission has increased, so have the number of Boone County hospitalizations, moving from the green to yellow zone on Thursday.

MU Health Care’s Dr. Margaret Day, family medicine physician and COVID-19 vaccine co-chair, said cases are on the increase. But she’s seeing many patients calling for care after testing positive with at-home tests. 

“I’ve noticed a definite uptick in my patient panel recently, unfortunately, becoming infected with COVID. We’re sometimes learning about it on the ‘I tested positive at home, and now I’m looking for guidance or treatment,’ so I have noticed a change there in the last couple of weeks,” she said.

Day pointed out that at-home tests can go unreported, so case numbers aren’t as accurate.

“We’ve become somewhat accustomed to following case counts as a measure of, you know, what COVID activity is in our community,” Day said. “And one factor to point out recently that has made that a little bit less accurate, is, you know, the prevalence of home testing. So certainly people have that capability and tracking cases, or a number of infections, you know, may not be our most reliable indicator of COVID activity in our community.”

She said she’s seeing more at-home tests due to their convenience.

“Those home tests are now pretty readily available, and certainly pretty easy to get it out of the cabinet and self-swab,” Day said.

The newest dominant variants thought to be infecting people, BA.5 and BA.4, sub-variants of omicron, are spreading quickly.

“BA.5 is thought to be causing now the majority of infections across the country. So making up 53.6% estimated recently, so between that and the BA.4 variant, they are by far making up the the majority of cases,” she said.

BA.5 accounted for nearly 54% of the country’s COVID cases as of Saturday, according to the CDC. Similar subvariant, BA.4, makes up 17% more.

Vaccine companies are being encouraged to work on providing protection from the new variants in the upcoming new booster shots this fall. But Dr. Day suggests getting the booster now.

“It’s recommended that people over 5 do get a booster and even some populations, including immunocompromised individuals over age 12, and all people over age 50 can get a second booster,” she said.

Pfizer told NBC News that it could have an updated vaccine targeting BA.5 and BA.4 ready to be distributed in October.