Omicron is now in DC, Maryland and Virginia, with earliest case present for weeks
. The discovery of the variant in the country prompted the federal government to enact travel restrictions and ushered in the latest chapter of the pandemic.
Ranit Mishori, vice president and chief public health officer at Georgetown University, where a person infected with the omicron variant was tested on Dec. 7, said scientists expect omicron to take over from delta as the dominant variant in the United States.“In the next couple of weeks, judging how things are going in the U.K. and Denmark and other countries, we can assume omicron will become the dominant strain in our area,” she said.
Local public health officials have said little about the individuals infected with omicron, but the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data , theIn addition to the earliest U.S. case, the 40-year-old Maryland woman, the other Maryland cases were in a 22- to 25-year-old man tested on Nov. 27, and a 42-year-old man tested on Nov. 30, according to GISAID.
Scientists discovered a marker making it more likely the sample was omicron, and sent it to the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institutes of Health, where Mishori said analysts worked “literally around the clock” to sequence the sample in only five days, which is about half the time it usually takes.
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