Posted on 11/28/21
| News Source: Arutz-7
No cases of the new COVID variant identified in southern Africa have been reported in the US thus far, America’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced Friday.
In a statement, the CDC said that no cases of the new ‘Omicron’ variant of the coronavirus have yet been reported in the US, after the World Health Organization labelled Omicron a “variant of concern”.
“No cases of this variant have been identified in the US to date,” the CDC said.
“CDC is continuously monitoring variants and the US variant surveillance system has reliably detected new variants in this country. We expect Omicron to be identified quickly if it emerges in the US.”
At least one case of the new strain has been reported in Israel, with seven suspected cases.
The Omicron variant, also known as B.1.1.529, was first identified in South Africa last Tuesday, before being detected in several other southern African nations.
While the new strain has 32 mutations on the spike protein – the portion of the virus which is replicated by the COVID vaccine to induce an antibody response – it remains unclear if the mutations make the variant more transmissible, or whether the mutations could help it to evade vaccine-based immunity.