Californian tests positive for new covid-19 variant

Traveler back from S.Africa moves into self-quarantine

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

Infectious-diseases expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said the traveler tested positive Monday. The patient has mild symptoms that are improving and is in self-quarantine.

The person had the full two doses of the Moderna vaccine and wasn’t yet due for a booster shot, California officials said. Genetic sequencing was performed by the University of California at San Francisco and confirmed by the CDC.

The vaccine has been proven to reduce the risk of severe illness and death, and Fauci said it is reasonable to believe it will offer protection against the omicron variant.

The mild nature of the California person’s infection “is a testimony to the importance of the vaccinations,” said California Health Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly.

All the individual’s close contacts have been reached and have tested negative, officials said. The patient, who agreed to remain in quarantine, was identified only as being between 18 and 49.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom expressed confidence in the state’s efforts to control the virus and said he

does not anticipate imposing another stay-at-home order or other shutdown measures.

At least 23 other countries have reported omicron infections since South African authorities first identified the variant a week ago — an announcement that led the U.S. and many other nations to almost immediately bar airline travelers arriving from southern Africa.

The CDC is taking steps to tighten U.S. testing rules for travelers from overseas, including requiring a test for all travelers within a day of boarding a flight to the U.S. regardless of vaccination status. It was also considering mandating post-arrival testing.

Officials said those measures would “buy time” for the country to learn more about the new variant and to take appropriate precautions, but that given its transmissibility its arrival in the U.S. was inevitable.

The omicron variant has several 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. Public health experts are carefully watching to see if omicron will displace delta as the most prominent viral strain.

“Any declaration of what will or will not happen with this variant, I think it is too early to say,” Fauci said.

European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said it will take two to three weeks before it becomes fully clear what omicron can do to the world.

“This is, in normal times, a short period. In pandemic times, it’s an eternity,” she lamented.

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 Friday from South Africa to Amsterdam 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.

In South Africa, new cases of covid-19 nearly doubled in a single day to almost 8,600, authorities reported Wednesday, and the country’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases said omicron has now overtaken the delta variant among samples now being analyzed at the genetic level.

“We will likely see this scenario play out multiple times across the country in the coming days or weeks,” said Scott Becker, CEO of the Association of Public Health Laboratories.

“This particular case shows the system working as it was designed to work — an individual with travel history from South Africa, an astute laboratory and quick prioritization of the specimen for sequencing, and close coordination with public health officials.”

Still, public health experts in the United States have cautioned 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.

On Wednesday, the World Health Organization warned that blanket travel bans are complicating the sharing of lab samples from South Africa that could help scientists understand the new variant.

At the same time the omicron variant is spreading new fear and uncertainty, the dominant delta variant is still creating havoc, especially in Europe. Many countries there are dealing with a surge in infections and hospitalizations, despite a relatively high vaccination rate of 67% of the European Union’s population.