Most omicron infections in US are mild so far, CDC says

Over 40 cases of the new Covid variant have been discovered across 19 states

The chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that omicron infections in the US are mostly mild.

More than 40 cases of the new Covid variant have been discovered in America, but symptoms have been slight for those affected, explained Dr Rochelle Walensky to The Associated Press.

On 19 November, Covid booster shots were made available to all adults across the US, in a bid to curb winter surges amid more travelling and people visiting friends and family for the holidays.

Although the CDC is still learning about the omicron variant, we generally know “the more mutations a variant has, the higher level you need your immunity to be,” said Dr Walensky.

She added that “the disease is mild” in the cases analysed. Common symptoms include fatigue, coughing and congestion. One person so far has been hospitalised after testing positive for the omicron variant.

Scientists have said it could take weeks or months before we have a good understanding about the threat of omicron, but we do know that it has an unusual level of spike protein.

Omicron was first detected in Botswana on 11 November, and identified in South Africa on 14 November. The first US case was recorded on 1 December in the US. There have now been 43 cases across 19 states. Around a third of positive cases were in people who had been abroad, three quarters of these had been vaccinated. The delta variant makes up more than 99 per cent of coronavirus cases in the US.

Professor Francois Balloux, the director of the Genetics Institute at University College London, suggested that the variant could have developed in an immunocompromised person who had the virus for a long period of time, “possibly in an untreated HIV/AIDS patient”.

Pfizer’s lab tests have shown that a booster jab increased people’s levels of antibodies capable of fighting off omicron by 25-fold.

“Go and get your third boost as soon as possible,” Pfizer’s chief scientific officer, Dr Mikael Dolsten told AP.