United States reports first case of Omicron Covid-19 variant

A traveller returning from South Africa has become the first case of the Omicron variant confirmed in the United States.

The United States has confirmed its first case of Omicron in a fully-vaccinated traveller who entered California from South Africa.

The person flew in on November 22 and returned a positive test seven days later on November 29.

In a briefing from the White House, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr Anthony Fauci confirmed they had not undertaken a vaccine booster shot and is experiencing “mild symptoms which are improving”.

Speaking on the threat of the Omicron variant on the US’ pandemic response, Dr Fauci

encouraged people to “get boosted now”.

“I think what’s happening now is another example of why it’s important for people to get vaccinated,” he said.

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Chief Medical Adviser to the president, Anthony Fauci, urged Americans to get their Covid-19 booster shots. Picture: Mandel Ngan/AFP

The Chief Medical Adviser to the President also added that people shout not wait for a vaccine that’s been targeted to the strain.

“Because our experience with variants such as the Delta variant is that even though the vaccine isn’t specifically targeted to the Delta variant, when you get a high enough level of an immune response, you get spillover protection even against a variant that the vaccine wasn’t specifically directed at,” he said.

“But the mistake people would make is to say, ‘Let me wait to see if we get one.’”

Previously, President Joe Biden forewarned it was only a matter of time before the new variant would appear in the US.

“Sooner or later we’re going to see cases of this new variant here in the United States,” he said on Monday.

“We’ll have to face this new threat just as we face those who have come before it.”

The first US case of Omicron was detected in a traveller returning from South Africa. Picture: Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP

Prior to this, travellers from eight African counties – Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe – were banned from entering the country, however this rule didn’t apply to American citizens or permanent residents.

Dr Fauci said these restrictions were made in an attempt to help health authorities “buy some time,” against the new variant.

“No one feels – I certainly don’t – that a travel ban is going to prevent people who are infected from coming to the United States,” he said on Wednesday.

“But we needed to buy some time to be able to prepare, understand what’s going on.”

To date, Australia has recorded six cases of the Omicron variant after another case was confirmed in a man who flew into Sydney from Doha, via South Africa, on November 25. Prior to that, the southwest Sydney man had spent six months in Nigeria.

Five more passengers on his flight also tested positive to Covid-19, including two more confirmed cases of the Omicron variant.

Speaking on Sunrise, epidemiologist Professor Tony Blakely said that while the variant cases were likely to rise, it might even become Australia’s “get out of the pandemic card”.

“We do expect case numbers to rise. It has probably got its tentacles into NSW, and it will rise, as it has overseas,” he said.

“This one should be more mild, but we don’t know exactly how much more mild it is, so that means that the hospitalisation rate should be less severe.

“This may be a blessing if it displaces Delta and becomes the more mild version, it might help us get out of this pandemic.”