US reports first confirmed case of Omicron coronavirus variant in South Africa returnee

By Team Newsable | First Published Dec 2, 2021, 9:13 AM IST

Much about the new variant is not known yet, but its emergence has created fresh apprehension across the world with most of the countries putting travel restrictions.

The United States' first confirmed case of the Omicron coronavirus variant has been identified in California. America announced its first confirmed case of Omicron, the new variant of Covid, in a traveller who has recently returned from South Africa as scientists around the world race to establish whether the new, mutant version of the coronavirus is more dangerous than previous ones.

Much about the new variant is not known yet, but its emergence has created fresh apprehension across the world with most of the countries putting travel restrictions. In a White House news briefing, Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said, "We knew it was just a matter of time before the first case of omicron would be detected in the United States.”

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Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco obtained a sample from the patient on Tuesday who developed mild symptoms and tested positive for Covid-19 and worked feverishly overnight to assemble the genetic sequence. worked feverishly overnight to assemble the genetic sequence.

The person, who had had the full two doses of the Moderna vaccine and wasn’t yet due for a booster shot, is improving, California officials said. That individual, Fauci said, is self-quarantining and close contacts have tested negative for the coronavirus so far.

The World Health Organization designates Omicron a “variant of concern”. In a technical brief released this week, WHO noted that the variant poses a “very high” global risk. The variant was first identified by scientists in South Africa and has since been detected in several countries.

Meanwhile, President Biden will extend until mid-March a requirement that travellers wear masks on airplanes, trains and buses and at airports and transit stations, a person familiar with the decision said Wednesday night.

The move to extend the mandate, which was set to expire on Jan. 18, is part of a much broader winter strategy for combating Covid-19 that Biden is to announce on Thursday, during a visit to the National Institutes of Health. The strategy will also include a new requirement that international travellers be tested for Covid-19 one day before departing for the United States, according to officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The mask mandate extension was first reported by Reuters on Wednesday.

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