By: Chinh Doan
STILLWATER, Oklahoma -
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ranks Oklahoma among the bottom for testing for different strains of COVID-19.
Some health experts have expressed concerns that the state is not doing enough to track mutations.
The new Oklahoma Pandemic Center of Innovation and Excellence and Public Health Lab in Stillwater, which broke ground in February, can test for COVID-19 and even take apart the samples to find any mutations and variants of concern or interest. We have 25 or so staffed in the lab and 10 dedicated to molecular alone, so sequencing is a different level of technical expertise, but we have plenty of staff to handle it, said Dr. Michael Kayser, director of the center and lab.
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Variants are viruses that have changed or mutated, making them challenging to detect or control.
According to the CDC, the five strains of COVID-19 identified in Oklahoma include two “variants of interest,” which are not any more contagious than the original virus and also three “variants of concern,” which tend to spread faster.
Of the “variants of concerns,” Oklahoma has had nine confirmed cases of the UK variant, which is the predominant strain driving a surge of cases in the United States. Oklahoma also has one known case of the Brazil variant and one of the South Africa variant.
News On 6 asked OU Health s Chief COVID-19 officer, Dr. Dale Bratzler, why Oklahoma’s numbers are low compared to other states, such as Michigan, which has more than 2,200 confirmed variant cases.
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