A person in California became the first person in the US to have a verified case of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced Wednesday afternoon.
‘The individual was a traveler who returned from South Africa on November 22,’ the CDC said in a news release. ‘The individual, who was fully vaccinated and had mild symptoms that are improving, is self-quarantining and has been since testing positive. All close contacts have been contacted and have tested negative.’
The news of the variant’s arrival comes shortly after both President Joe Biden and Dr Anthony Fauci, his chief medical adviser, said it was inevitable the variant would surface in the states.
‘We knew that it was just a matter of time,’ Fauci told reporters at the White House Wednesday.
Fauci added that the discovery ‘is another example of why it’s important for people to get vaccinated who’ve not been vaccinated, but also boosting.’
‘We may not need a variant-specific boost. We’re preparing for the possibility that we need a variant-specific booster,’ Fauci said, adding that people should not wait on getting a booster in case a variant-specific shot becomes available.
Both the California and San Francisco Departments of Health worked with the CDC to confirm the case was caused by the newly troubling variant.
‘Genomic sequencing was conducted at the University of California at San Francisco and the sequence was confirmed at the CDC as consistent with the Omicron variant,’ Fauci said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that the global risk of the new variant is ‘very high’.
The variant, which was first detected in western Europe, has a high number of mutations that suggest it may spread just as or more easily than the Delta variant, which currently accounts for 99.9 % of Covid-19 cases in the US.
‘Omicron’s very emergence is another reminder that although many of us might think we’re done with Covid-19, it’s not done with us,’ Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, told a special session of the World Health Assembly.
The variant has also been detected in the UK, the Netherlands, Italy, Portugal, Germany, Belgium, Canada, Australia, Israel, Hong Kong, Nigeria and others.
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