OMICRON

University Health will begin offering the Pfizer-BioNTech bivalent COVID-19 vaccine starting Tuesday to provide a new layer of protection against the Omicron variant.

The primary COVID-19 strain right now is BA.5, an Omicron subvariant present in 88% of current cases -- the most infectious strain yet. KSAT viewers sent in questions asking about how soon you can be reinfected with COVID-19.

The Omicron subvariant BA.4 & BA.5 are circulating the community. Doctors say there's limited information on these variants so far.

Bexar County COVID-19 cases are trending upwards again, though hospitalizations are staying relatively steady.

Texas Biomedical Research Institute is researching and developing variant-specific treatments to help in the fight against COVID-19.

The stock market is losing crucial support from the Federal Reserve.

Teachers are trying to make up for a lag in learning over the past two years because of COVID-19 shutdowns and quarantines.

Community Labs is scrambling to catch up on a backlog of COVID tests as the demand for testing has doubled compared to previous months.

With new COVID variants and constant recommendation updates, it can be tough to wade through the information, so our KSAT Trust Index team is doing your fact checking for you.

Just last week, we asked: If you’re a health care worker, what are you seeing lately on the job?

As the highly contagious Omicron variant sweeps through the population, testing sites have been bombarded, resulting in some issues and delays for testing companies.

As the raging omicron variant of COVID-19 infects workers across the nation, millions of those whose jobs don’t provide paid sick days are having to choose between their health and their paycheck.

Omicron COVID-19 cases are booming, not just in Bexar County, but in other rural counties surrounding San Antonio.

University Health’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Bryan Alsip, answered some of the most-asked questions about COVID-19 and the new omicron variant, which now accounts for a majority of new cases.

Look, life as we know it right now is pretty insane. Omicron is raging across the country, it didn’t even feel like 2021 happened and America’s sweetheart, Betty White, is dead.

President Joe Biden is urging concern but not alarm as the United States set records for daily reported COVID-19 cases and his administration struggles to ease concerns about testing shortages.

New COVID-19 cases continue to surge in Bexar County this week, with more than 4,300 new cases reported on Tuesday.

Why are so many vaccinated people getting COVID-19 lately.

COVID hospitalizations in Bexar County have increased by more than 75% from just one week ago.

It's been a rollercoaster of a year, and 2021 is ending like it began — with COVID-19 cases on the rise.

With the number of COVID cases in children on the rise, local pediatricians are encouraging parents to vaccinate their children.

We might not be able to claim that 2021 was *the* wildest year in recent history (2020 will likely get that credit for quite some time), but it might be a close second.

Greece’s health minister says music will be banned at all commercial venues for New Year’s celebrations as part of new restrictions announced in response to a surge in COVID-19 infections fueled by the omicron variant.

Cases of Omicron are outpacing previous variants of concern like Delta across Texas.

The latest COVID-19 variant is upending holiday plans for tens of thousands of travelers — but it didn’t do much damage to holiday shopping.

President Joe Biden is announcing plans to deliver 500 million free COVID-19 tests to Americans, increase support for hospitals and expand the availability of vaccines to confront a winter surge of coronavirus cases driven by the fast-spreading omicron variant.

As Omicron cases are surging nationally, local doctors are advising what to look for and if we should cancel holiday plans.

Omicron has raced ahead of other variants and is now the dominant version of the coronavirus in the U.S. Federal health officials said Monday that omicron accounted for an estimated 73% of new infections last week.

The new omicron variant took only a few weeks to live up to dire predictions about how hugely contagious it is.

The European Union’s top official says omicron is expected to be the dominant coronavirus variant in the 27-nation bloc by mid-January.

British Health Secretary Sajid Javid says the omicron variant of COVID-19 is spreading so rapidly that it has the potential to overwhelm Britain’s hospitals.

Doctors at the Molecular Diagnostic Laboratory of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio are identifying COVID variants by genome testing.

To protect yourself against the omicron variant, experts say to do what you would against any other variant.

University Health first began sending positive COVID-19 tests for sequencing in March. So far, the omicron variant has not been detected.

Although there’s still a lot of uncertainty surrounding the new Omicron COVID-19 variant, health officials say that early data indicates the mRNA vaccines are still proving to be effective.

A push for COVID-19 vaccinations continues as the holidays approach and concerns over the Omicron variant heighten.

While all eyes are on the new and little-understood omicron variant, the delta form of the coronavirus isn’t finished wreaking havoc in the U.S., sending record numbers of patients to the hospital in some states, especially in the Midwest and New England.

California is reporting its second confirmed case of the omicron COVID variant in as many days.

Scientists say it could be weeks before they better understand how dangerous the omicron variant is.

Britain says it will offer all adults a booster dose of vaccine within two months to bolster the nation’s immunity as the new omicron variant of the coronavirus spreads.

With the emergence of a new COVID variant, experts say not to panic because we have tools to protect against it.

President Joe Biden is urging Americans to get vaccinated, including booster shots, as he seeks to quell concerns over the newly identified coronavirus variant named omicron.