Health Officials in Ottawa County are warning residents that a new highly contagious variant of the coronavirus has made its way into West Michigan.
Officials from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services confirmed Saturday that the first case of someone carrying the COVID-19 delta variant, has been confirmed in Ottawa County.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention classifies the Delta variant as a "variant of concern," a label given to strains believed to be more transmissible or cause more serious disease.
Health officials say, the identified case was a vaccinated adult in their 50s with recent travel within the United States.
The case is the first of delta in West Michigan, but not in the state as a whole, which has seen more than 30 cases in several counties, and health officials say, that person had been vaccinated.
Still, the health department is urging those who have not been vaccinated to do so. Though the Ottawa County case was in a vaccinated individual, data shows the mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna still work well against the variant.