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Post by Admin on Dec 4, 2021 19:10:01 GMT
Scientists in South Africa say the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus appears to spread more than twice as fast as Delta - which has so far been the most contagious.
The analysis has not been peer-reviewed and the researchers say there's a lot of uncertainty.
Cases are being reported all over the world, including among fully vaccinated people.
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Post by Admin on Dec 5, 2021 19:02:13 GMT
Dr. Anthony Fauci recently spoke on Fox Business Network’s program “Cavuto: Coast to Coast” about the omicron coronavirus variant, revealing what worries him most about the variant. Fauci spoke about the omicron variant as cases continue to rise across the country. The first case was diagnosed in California and later the second case popped up in Minnesota in a patient who had previously traveled to New York City. Fauci said those cases suggest “there’s community spread.” “And once you have community spread, then you’re going to be seeing cases popping up all over the place, because they’re under the radar screen, because we know from delta that a substantial proportion of cases can be without symptoms and can spread to another person, even if you don’t have any symptoms,” he said. Fauci then revealed what alarms him about the omicron variant’s current spread. “The thing that caught my attention ... was the person who was in New York City and then got infected there, because there was no contact with anyone that he could identify was in, for example, southern Africa. And he himself certainly was not. “So, that’s the kind of thing that raises some alarms about the under-the-radar-screen spreading throughout the country, which tells me ... that we are going to start seeing in the coming days more and more states and more and more cases that are going to have it,” he said. “There’s no doubt about that.” Dr. Leong Hoe Nam, a Singapore-based infectious disease doctor at the Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital, told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” that the omicron variant will overtake the world in a few months. Nam said that “omicron will dominate and overwhelm the whole world in three to six months,” he said.
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Post by Admin on Dec 6, 2021 2:05:23 GMT
U.S. Travel Restrictions To Go Into Effect As Omicron Variant Spreads
New travel restrictions for international air travelers coming into the U.S. are set to begin in just hours, as officials try to slow the spread of the Omicron variant. All visitors must now show proof of a negative Covid test the day before boarding. Some travelers are canceling their flights altogether.
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Post by Admin on Dec 6, 2021 19:02:58 GMT
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Post by Admin on Dec 6, 2021 22:14:41 GMT
The Minneapolis man who tested positive for the Omicron variant of COVID-19 in one of the US’s first cases has spoken out, saying it had not “crossed my mind” that he might have been exposed to the virus. Peter McGinn, 30, who is fully vaccinated and received a booster shot, said he went out following the Anime NYC 2021 event at the Javits Center last month to a bar with several other vaccinated attendees, half of whom have since tested positive for the virus, ABC News reported. “I felt perfectly safe with the people that I was with, and so it never really crossed my mind to think that I had COVID,” McGinn, a health care analyst, told the network Sunday. “I was just a little taken aback.” McGinn said after returning to Minneapolis from the trip, he learned that a friend with whom he had attended the convention contracted the virus. “That threw me for a loop because I really wasn’t feeling sick,” he told the Star Tribune. He said he had a slight runny nose, a mild cough and felt exhausted — but chalked it up to walking 15 miles a day during his trip to New York City. State health employees conducted genetic sequencing on his sample and informed him on Dec. 1 that he was one of the first cases in the US of the new variant. “I’m essentially patient zero,” McGinn told the New York Times. He said he recovered quickly from the illness — which he attributes to being fully vaccinated and receiving a booster shot. “A lot of it was just like, ‘See, vaccines don’t work.’ But in my opinion, they absolutely work because they reduce the amount of people who are in the hospital,” he told the Star Tribune. “You might still get COVID, but it reduces the symptoms based off my experience.”
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