5 vaccinated Californians contracted omicron after attending Wisconsin wedding

Five vaccinated adults from California’s San Francisco Bay Area contracted omicron coronavirus variant after attending a wedding in Wisconsin on November 27, public health officials said on Friday. They were among the group of 12 vaccinated people who tested positive for COVID-19 after attending the function. One of them had recently returned to the United States after travelling abroad. 

Also Read: No evidence of deaths due to Omicron variant yet, says WHO

Officials said that most individuals who tested positive have received a coronavirus booster shot and all of them have showcased only mild symptoms. None of them have been hospitalised as of Friday. Meanwhile, genomic sequencing was being conducted to determine if the remaining seven cases are the omicron variant.

“Public health officials continue to be vigilant and are monitoring evidence of this variant’s transmissibility and the severity of illness resulting from infection. We don’t yet know how Omicron will impact a highly vaccinated region like the Bay Area. We remind residents that vaccination continues to provide the best protection against severe illness from COVID-19 that could result in hospitalization and death,” the Alameda County Department of Health said in a statement on Friday. 

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The first case of omicron in the United States was discovered in San Francisco earlier this week. Since then, over 20 cases of the variant have been detected across the US. All those who have tested positive for the latest variant in the US have only shown mild to moderate symptoms and none of them have been hospitalised.

Also Read: What is Omicron?

Meanwhile, speaking to CNN, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said while 12 states in the US have detected cases of the new variant, the Delta version still accounts for practically all new infections.

“We now have about 86,000 cases of Covid right now in the United States being diagnosed daily, and 99.9% of them, the vast majority of them, continue to be Delta,” she said.