SAN DIEGO (KGTV) -- San Diego County health officials confirmed they've detected cases of the COVID-19 mu variant in the county.
Forty-three cases have been detected so far, but only 24 of those cases were among county residents. For comparison, county officials say 2,344 delta variant cases have been detected to date.
The news came out just one day after Los Angeles reported 167 cases of the mu variant. San Diego's mu variant cases were actually detected back in April and May of this year.
Dr. Seema Shah, the medical director of the county's Epidemiology and Immunization Services, said that the variants are detected through genome sequencing. Not all positive COVID-19 cases are genome sequenced, but shah says mu hasn't been detected since.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has called mu a "variant of interest," but so far the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not, although health officials both at the local and federal level say they are continuing to keep an eye on it.
Shah explains that vaccines are still the best way to avoid any variant, and although they're monitoring for mu, the delta variant is still the most dominant strain of COVID-19 both in San Diego County and in the country.
