San Mateo County health and fitness officers are urging people to get examined and vaccinated for COVID-19, specially all those who are setting up to travel or foresee a return to in-person education.

Well being officers attribute the improve to holiday break gatherings and the Omicron variant, which is additional contagious. The risk of neighborhood transmission of COVID-19 is presently very superior, with extra than 2,000 new situations in San Mateo County because final week — such as the Omicron variant.

“Extra men and women are infectious and spreading the virus indoors,” Dr. Curtis Chan, the county’s deputy overall health officer, explained. “Taking these techniques — limiting shut contacts, putting on a mask indoors to avert finding contaminated and infecting other individuals, isolating when symptomatic, and receiving examined — can lessen the likelihood of extreme COVID affecting you, your family members and local community.”

Health and fitness officials said there are two varieties of COVID-19 testing: immediate antigen exams, which return success speedily, and polymerase chain reaction exams, or PCR, which generally return final results inside 72 hours even though instances may well fluctuate dependent on demand from customers.

San Mateo County only provides PCR screening at 10 web-sites, which it operates via contracted providers Curative and LHI/OptumServe. The county is not distributing swift antigen assessments to the general general public or to towns.