Why has not the U.S. identified a lot more Omicron situations?
Last Friday, just a day just after South African researchers first announced the discovery of the Omicron variant, Europe reported its to start with case: The new coronavirus variant was in Belgium. Ahead of the weekend was out, Australia, Britain, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Israel, Italy and other nations around the world had all uncovered situations.
But in the United States, experts stored seeking.
“If we commence seeing a variant popping up in a number of nations throughout the earth, generally my intuition is that it is presently right here,” mentioned Taj Azarian, a genomic epidemiologist at the University of Central Florida.
On Wednesday, American officials introduced that researchers had observed it — in a California client who had just lately returned from South Africa. By then, Canada experienced currently determined 6 conditions Britain experienced discovered more than a dozen.
The United States discovered a second circumstance, in Minnesota, on Thursday, and far more are pretty much certainly lurking, experts claimed. So why haven’t we observed them nonetheless?
Many variables may perhaps be at play, like travel patterns and stringent entrance demands that might have delayed the variant’s introduction to the United States. But blind spots and delays in the country’s genomic surveillance technique might have been factors, way too, professionals reported. With a lot of labs now conducting a targeted search for the variant, the tempo of detection could immediately decide up.
Last Friday, just a day just after South African researchers first announced the discovery of the Omicron variant, Europe reported its to start with case: The new coronavirus variant was in Belgium. Ahead of the weekend was out, Australia, Britain, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Israel, Italy and other nations around the world had all uncovered situations.
But in the United States, experts stored seeking.
“If we commence seeing a variant popping up in a number of nations throughout the earth, generally my intuition is that it is presently right here,” mentioned Taj Azarian, a genomic epidemiologist at the University of Central Florida.
On Wednesday, American officials introduced that researchers had observed it — in a California client who had just lately returned from South Africa. By then, Canada experienced currently determined 6 conditions Britain experienced discovered more than a dozen.
The United States discovered a second circumstance, in Minnesota, on Thursday, and far more are pretty much certainly lurking, experts claimed. So why haven’t we observed them nonetheless?
Many variables may perhaps be at play, like travel patterns and stringent entrance demands that might have delayed the variant’s introduction to the United States. But blind spots and delays in the country’s genomic surveillance technique might have been factors, way too, professionals reported. With a lot of labs now conducting a targeted search for the variant, the tempo of detection could immediately decide up.