About the newly discovered variant Omicron

Click on the dropdown button to translate.

Translate this page:

You can translate the content of this page by selecting a language in the select box.

Vous pouver traduire cet article dans la langue de votre choix dans la case de selection

 

Many of the people who have tested positive in the U.S. were fully vaccinated, but they all have experienced mild symptoms so far.

• White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Friday that lab studies indicate booster shots increase antibody protection against a range of variants.
• Utah, California, Minnesota, Colorado, Hawaii, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Missouri, New York and New Jersey have all confirmed cases.
• 
  While at least 12 states have identified cases of the Omicron coronavairus variant, US health officials remain concerned about the Delta version that 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," US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Friday.

  "And we know what we need to do against Delta, and that is get vaccinated, get boosted if you're eligible and continue all of those prevention measures including masking," she told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. "And those are very likely to work against the Omicron variant."

  Omicron may be more transmissible than Delta

  The first confirmed Omicron case in the US was identified in California on Wednesday.

  Cases of the newest coronavirus variant were identified by late Friday in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Utah, according to health officials.

• Contingencies set in case new vaccine is needed against Omicron

  Pharmaceutical companies that make Covid-19 vaccines have contingency plans in place should a new vaccine be needed against the Omicron variant, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Friday.

  Data indicate that people "could probably get a good bit of mileage" from boosting with the vaccines currently in use, Fauci said during a White House Covid-19 Response Team briefing.

  Omicron could become the dominant variant, but Delta is a problem now, CDC Director says

  Omicron could become the dominant variant, but Delta is a problem now, CDC Director says

  "Having said that, we are working with the pharmaceutical companies, particularly obviously Moderna, Pfizer and J&J, on what their plans are," he added.

  "And they do have plans that have multiple contingency. One is to rev up the production of the vaccines that they already have, the next is to make, for example, a bivalent -- where you have the vaccine against both the ancestral strain and the new variant -- and the other is to make a variant-specific boost."

  The US Food and Drug Administration would decide what regulatory process these vaccines would need to go through, Fauci said, "but in general, it could -- and I say could -- fall under the same situation as we do with a strain change for influenza. But I would have to leave that determination to the FDA."

• Sources: NBC/CNN