Talk to Us: COVID Questions. BPR’s Helen Chickering brings us this week’s answer.
This week s question comes from Dr. Penny Brewster of Franklin.
“I am trying to find out how prevalent the COVID-19 variants are in western NC.” (She was also interested in the amount of sequencing being done for variants, and about effectiveness of the existing vaccines.)
Good question. To find an answer, we checked in with several sources including the NC Department of Health and Human Services Office of Communications where Catie Armstrong writes:
VARIANT SEQUENCING/PREVALENCE “As part of increased national surveillance efforts, the NC State Laboratory of Public Health (SLPH) submits 16 positive specimens each week to CDC’s National SARS-CoV-2 Strain Surveillance (NS3) program. SLPH can also submit additional positive samples each week from vaccine breakthrough cases (someone testing positive at least 14 days after completing vaccination) and from other situa