As of Dec. 15, 82 percent of all COVID-19 tests for symptomatic patients at Houston Methodist had omicron, according to data sent to Becker's Dec. 19.
Cases are identified through Houston Methodist's virus genome sequencing program.
Through Dec. 12, the program found omicron cases accounted for 45 percent of all Houston Methodist COVID-19 infections, according to data sent to Becker's Dec. 17. On Dec. 15, Houston Methodist said 32 percent of its symptomatic COVID-19 cases were from omicron.
In less than three weeks, omicron became the cause of the majority of new Houston Methodist cases, according to the most recent news release. In comparison, delta took about three months to surpass 80 percent of cases after initial detection.
According to S. Wesley Long, MD, PhD, medical director of diagnostic microbiology at Houston Methodist, omicron has a doubling time of 2.2 days.