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First omicron cases identified in Boston
By adamg on Wed, 12/15/2021 - 8:24pm
The Boston Public Health Commission today announced three Bostonians have been diagnosed with the Covid-19 omicron variant.
All three are young adults, above 18, the commission said, adding none were fully vaccinated. All experienced only mild symptoms and did not require hospitalization, the commission said. The commission did not provide further details on the cases.
The commission urged everybody who is eligible to get fully vaccinated - or to get boosters if it's been six months since their last Pfizer or Moderna shots or two months since their last Johnson and Johnson shot.
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Comments
Just confirming what was pretty obvious
You needn't be an epidemiologist to figure out that omicron was going to be here very quickly. As soon as it was identified in South Africa, I bet it was already here in the US, if not already in Massachusetts. The travel bans were silly given what has happened over the last 3 years. Even New Zealand couldn't banish Covid, so what chance do we have of keeping any variant out?
Worried about what to do?
Wear your mask
Get boosted
Correct, it was probably in the US before it was even ID'd
by South Africa's covid surveillance. This stuff moves *fast* when you have a large number of international flights going every which way.
Travel ban might actually slow it down, but not for long, since internal movement within the country is even more effective. And you're not going to keep it out.
Personally? Yeah, not too worried. It doesn't appear to be of particularly high concern to the boosted.
Yes, it definitely was here by then
South Africa reported the new variant to WHO on November 24th, and they gave it the "variant of concern" designation two days later.
One of the first identified US cases, the person in Minnesota who likely became infected while attending a convention in NYC over November 19-21, developed symptoms on November 22nd and was tested on November 24th, so it was here and being transmitted before South Africa reported it.
Cool, thanks for the deets!
I'd heard about the Minnesota case but didn't know about the timeline.
Were the patients
Biogen employees?