Cottage Health: Doctors seeing higher concentration of BA.5 variant in wastewater

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - Health experts in Santa Barbara are seeing a higher concentration of the latest COVID-19 variants in wastewater.

Doctors at Cottage Hospital believe the new variants are a less severe version of the virus circulating, but a more infectious version.

Without case counts, doctors are seeing how much virus is in the community.

They believe the casecount is less than the actual number of COVID-19 cases.

This is because more people are testing from home and not reporting the results to the county.

Doctors are also noticing the virus is spreading more outdoors, causing disruption to travel, work and school.

Doctors advise everyone to continue being thoughtful about your decisions for the next few weeks.