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Texas Hospital Records 1st Case Of South American Lambda COVID-19 Variant

Published July 21, 2021 at 1:06 PM EDT
A physician stares outside of an entrance at the Houston Methodist Hospital on July 16, 2021 in Houston, Texas. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
A physician stares outside of an entrance at the Houston Methodist Hospital on July 16, 2021 in Houston, Texas. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

As cases of COVID-19 climb around the country — up nearly 200% in the last two weeks — hospitals are filling as well. Dr. Thomas Dobbs, Mississippi’s state health officer, tweeted this week that the “4th wave is here.”

At Houston Methodist Hospital in Texas, 184 COVID-19 patients have been admitted, up 50% from July 1. Most of them are unvaccinated and infected with the infectious Delta variant of the disease.

But hospital physician and CEO Marc Boom says at least one hospitalization is a patient infected with the Lambda variant, a strain of coronavirus that started in Peru and is now rampant in parts of South America.

Boom joins host Robin Young to talk about the situation at his hospital.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.