MIDLAND, Texas — Same story different day-around the country, more people are getting tested for COVID-19. West Texas continues to see that same trend.
NewsWest 9 spoke with Val Sparks, Infection Preventionist at Midland Memorial Hospital. She said so far this week, 445 people have tested positive for COVID-19. That is a 49 percent positivity rate for tests done by Midland Health only.
Sparks said a huge difference can be seen for the number of people testing positive in just a matter of weeks.
"The week after Thanksgiving, we were down in the teens like 15 percent positivity or 13 percent positivity," said Sparks. "It jumped in the week of January 8th up to a 52 percent positivity rate."
Sparks said the positivity rates had remained around the 50 percent mark. She said more people are using their testing site.
"Our numbers are up because we are testing close to 170 to 180 people each day at our drive thru site," said Sparks. "We have had to build teams and test people in the afternoons also."
Sparks believes that not all news is bad news as some encouraging trends can be seen.
"A lot of the people that are getting COVID right now, which we assume to be omicron, are getting better quicker," said Sparks. "They are down a day or two and then by the fifth day they are hopefully feeling better. The viral cough can continue so they have to remain cautious."
Over in Odessa, MCH is seeing a very similar trend with the number of people they are testing at their specific testing sites. On Monday, MCH reported a 52.92% positivity rate, 45.60% on Tuesday, 49 percent on Wednesday and 43 percent on Thursday.