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Nebraska omicron cluster suggests faster symptom onset


Healthcare workers prepare to be tested for Covid-19 at a Nomi Health testing site in Omaha, Nebraska, on Wednesday, November 10, 2021.

Dan Brouillette | Bloomberg | beautiful pictures

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an investigation of a group of omicron infections in Nebraska found that the severe mutant variant had a shorter incubation period and caused similar or mild symptoms. than previous variants for previously vaccinated or infected individuals.

The CDC on Tuesday released findings from an epidemiological investigation of six confirmed omicron cases from a Nebraska household.

A 48-year-old man who returned to the US on November 23 from a conference in Nigeria experienced symptoms a day later and tested positive for the virus on November 26. patient, has not been vaccinated and has a history of these symptoms. infected in 2020, reported that he was not wearing a mask during close contact with a coughing masked person at the international conference on 20 November.

The man had an antigen test before returning to the US and the results were negative on November 21. Upon returning to the US, he remained asymptomatic and in close contact with 5 members of his family. I’m in Nebraska without a mask. November 23

Five members of his family, at least one of them is only 11 years old., symptoms developed between November 24 and 26 and then tested positive. Four of them had a history of symptomatic infections in 2020, one of whom was fully vaccinated with two doses of Pfizer.

Another individual in the household was unvaccinated and had never tested positive for Covid before. However, the person had mild upper respiratory tract symptoms in November 2020 before other family members were first infected.

The CDC says it takes between 33 and 75 hours, an average of about 3 days, for family members to develop symptoms after coming into contact with the traveling man, suggesting a short incubation period. than with omicrons. The average incubation period for Covid is 5 days, while the delta variant usually takes about 4 days for symptoms to manifest, according to the CDC.

According to the CDC, household members who were reinfected have had fewer symptoms than they did when they were first infected in November 2020. Two of them reported a fever following the infection, with no reported cases. loss of taste or smell.

The previously unvaccinated individual who did not test positive developed cough, joint pain, nasal congestion, fever, and chills. No one in the family required hospitalization after testing positive for omicrons, and none of them had underlying health conditions or compromised immune systems. People who get reinfected also don’t need to be hospitalized after their first infection in 2020.

The first confirmed omicron case was reported on December 1 in the San Francisco area by the California public health agency. Personally have returned from a trip to South Africa. However, the CDC later found one person who reported symptoms on November 15 after international travel, suggesting that this variant may have reached the US earlier.

Omicron was first identified by South Africa and Botswana in November. According to the CDC, this variant now represents 58% of cases sequenced in the US while plains account for about 41% of cases.

Increasing data from South Africa and the UK indicate that people do not get sick from the omicron versus delta variant. The UK Health Security Agency found that people infected with omicrons were 50 – 70% less likely to need to be hospitalized. South African scientists found that people infected with omicrons were 70 percent less likely to develop severe illness.

However, the study’s authors cautioned against reading too deeply into the preliminary data, as vaccination and immunity to infection could affect the study’s results.

Another study from the UK Health Security Agency found that a booster dose of Pfizer and the BioNTech vaccine provided 75% protection against symptomatic disease caused by omicrons. Data from South Africa suggest that two doses of Pfizer vaccine still protect against severe illness, but are much less effective at preventing omicron infections.

In the United States, new Covid cases are rising near the peak of the pandemic. The country reported an average of more than 237,000 new cases daily for the seven-day period ending Monday, up 66% over the past week, according to a CNBC analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University.

More than 70,000 people in the US are currently hospitalized with Covid, up 3% over the past week, according to seven-day average data from the Department of Health and Human Services through December 27.

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