SMITH COUNTY, Texas — **EDITOR'S NOTE: The video above is from Dec. 15, 2021, which is the one-year anniversary of the first COVID-19 vaccine being administered in East Texas.
Major entertainment and sporting events are seeing cancellations. Hospitals in the U.S. are starting to become overwhelmed. Some states have imposed indoor mask mandates.
Familiar headlines from across the United States show the omicron variant is causing a COVID-19 surge as it sweeps the nation, but what is the outlook for East Texas? One local health official said a surge is possible, and that residents should assume the omicron variant has already made its way into East Texas.
"We do expect to see case counts increase due to holiday travel and the fact that omicron is circulating in Texas, and now accounts for the majority of new cases in the U.S.," said UT Health East Texas’ Chief Medical Officer Dr. Tom Cummins. Current data shows 621 active cases in Smith County and 179 active cases in Gregg County, according to the Northeast Public Health District.
Read more from CBS19's newspaper partner, the Tyler Morning Telegraph.