(January 11, 2023) The Washoe County Health District says COVID case numbers stayed mostly flat through December.

Kevin Dick, the Washoe County Health District Officer, says "we're reporting 282 cases for the last week and a seven day moving average of 40 new cases per day."

That's slightly lower than the number of cases reported just after Christmas. 

While the latest XBB 1.5 variant is on the rise across the nation, the health district here says the variant makes up only 1.5% of the 149 cases tested in December 2022. 

The numbers released today, though, don't reflect any cases in January. And the health district says there is a chance we'll see more of the XBB 1.5 variant in the new year. 

The health district says they encourage everyone to get the latest booster vaccine to protect against the XBB 1.5 variant. 

"It's not a completely new and different type of a variant and the COVID bivalent is shown to protect you from Omicron subvariants, so it's highly recommended," Kevin Dick said Wednesday. 

The health district did mention during the COVID call today that influenza and RSV cases are dropping, but new cases and infections are still higher than this time last year.Â