Shelby County, TENNESSEE – The Shelby County Health Department recommends vaccination as soon as possible and fully vaccinated Tennesseans should receive a booster if it has been six months since their second dose.
The Shelby County Health Director, Dr. Taylor, released the following statement:
“We did expect the Omicron variant to appear in Tennessee, as it has in 19 other states.
Shelby County has excellent COVID-19 testing capacity, with several local laboratories which perform viral DNA sequencing as a part of routine surveillance.
For that reason, our laboratories were able to identify the tell-tale DNA signature of this new variant.
These results indicate the variant may already be spreading in Shelby County and possibly elsewhere in the state.”
This story will be updated as new information become available.