But don’t be alarmed. The sudden spike is related to a reporting lag, not an enormous increase in the number of new infections.

More from Julian Gill: The omicron variant BA.2 is making inroads across U.S., but Houston data tells a different story for now

Officials with the Texas Department of State Health Services said a Houston-area lab last week reported more than 9,000 old cases dating back to Jan. 1. That led to an outsized number of cases reported March 22 to March 25, which caused other Texas Medical Center metrics, like the rate of community spread, to surge.

Among the new data released Monday, the medical center reported a testing positivity rate of 2.1 percent, the lowest percentage in more than a year.

“The positivity rate has been rock-solid stable,” said Dr. James McDeavitt, senior vice president and dean of clinical affairs at Baylor College of Medicine. “That’s a sign there’s not more disease in the community.”

The state health agency noted the data lag on its dashboard on March 23, when it reported 10,900 new cases across Texas. The actual number of new cases on that day was 1,285, a number that closely aligns with recent case trends, according to a DSHS spokesperson.

Public health officials are keeping a close eye on cases as BA.2, a more contagious subvariant of omicron, spreads quickly in parts of Europe and the United States. Overall, the U.S. has not experienced a rise in cases, and experts are largely uncertain about what’s to come.

BY THE NUMBERS: More than half of Texans have been infected by COVID-19, according to CDC estimate

Even though the data lag artificially inflates the number of Houston-area infections, “you can’t rule out there could be a rise underneath,” said McDeavitt.

julian.gill@chron.com