The Illinois Department of Public Health is keeping an eye on the new “Kraken” COVID variant. COVID-19 case numbers have been falling, but the presence of the x-b-b-point-one-point five or “Kraken” variant has been slowly increasing says State Public Health Director Doctor Sameer Vohra. He notes that so far, this hasn’t caused an increase in hospitalizations.
“I think it is a testament to all the tools that we have at our disposal and to continue to be aware of those. If that variant were to come in, we will continue to monitor and make sure that we keep hospital capacity as stable and as high as it can be.”
Vohra says the bivalent COVID booster will help protect against the kraken variant. At last count, no Illinois counties were at a high risk for transmission of the virus and 20 counties were at medium risk. That’s an improvement from the previous week.
***Courtesy of the Illinois Department of Central Management Services***
