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Georgia public health officials are reporting an uptick in COVID-19 cases across the state.

A new variant of COVID-19 — BA.5 — has become the dominant strain in the United States, according to medical experts.

However, BA.5, like the Omicron variant it spawned from, does not seem to be as severe as some of the original variants.

Dr. Kenneth Horlander, a physician at Emory Healthcare in LaGrange, said severe cases locally have remained low.

“We have just a small number of patients with COVID in the hospital,” Horlander said. Horlander previously said state-reported COVID cases are often lower due to a lack of reporting.

Following the invention of at-home COVID tests, many who caught COVID elected not to visit a doctor’s office after receiving their diagnosis. Those with less severe symptoms were able to recover at home.

According to the Georgia Department of Health’s website, in Troup County there have been 16,054 confirmed cases of COVID since the start of the pandemic, 323 COVID-related deaths and 753 COVID-related hospitalizations.

“In many cases, some people are feeling pretty sick but are able to [recover] at home,” Horlander said. “Many times where people are not feeling overly sick, they think it’s allergies or a cold, and easily spread COVID as a result.”

In the last two weeks, there have been 203 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Troup County, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health. Currently, 47 percent of residents in Troup County have had at least one dose of the vaccine and 41% are fully vaccinated.