Omicron Variant Identified In U.S.: First Case Of Covid-19 Linked To New Variant Found In California

The first U.S. case of covid-19 linked to the new omicron variant has been identified in California in a traveler who returned from South Africa on Nov. 22, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday.

The patient has mild symptoms that are improving and is in self-quarantine. Genetic sequencing was performed by the University of California at San Francisco and confirmed by the CDC.

Since the new variant was first reported in South Africa last week, it has been identified in at least 19 countries spanning the globe, and officials had expected it to appear in the United States.

The omicron variant has a swath of mutations that raised concerns that this version of the virus might be able to evade immunity and withstand existing treatments for those infected with covid-19.

Many questions about omicron remain unanswered – vaccine manufacturers are working to determine how effective existing shots and boosters will be against the new mutant, and public health experts are carefully watching to see if omicron will displace delta as the most prominent viral strain.

Even before officials in South Africa alerted the world to the existence of the troubling new strain of coronavirus, omicron had jumped the nation’s borders.

Hundreds of passengers flying from South Africa to Amsterdam on Friday landed to learn not only that the variant had been discovered but that more than 60 people on two different planes had tested positive for coronavirus, including at least 14 who had the omicron variant. Dutch officials said this week that they detected the variant in the Netherlands at least a week before omicron’s worldwide debut.

Still, public health experts in the United States have tried to caution against panic while emphasizing the importance of continued mitigation efforts – including vaccines, masks and social distancing – to prevent the spread of all covid variants as we face the possibility of a winter surge.

(c) 2021, The Washington Post · Lena H. Sun, Katie Shepherd 

{Matzav.com}