In a White House news briefing, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the case was in an individual who traveled from South Africa on November 22 — before travel restrictions were in place — and tested positive for Covid-19 on November 29.
That individual, Fauci said, is self-quarantining and close contacts have tested negative for the coronavirus so far.
The person was fully vaccinated and is experiencing “mild symptoms, which are improving at this point,” Fauci said. Dr. Grant Colfax, San Francisco’s director of public health, said the person had not had a booster shot.
Color Health said in a statement it returned the positive test result through an San Francisco Covid-19 testing program, and Omicron was identified in under 30 hours “from the time of collection to strain confirmation.”
The World Health Organization designates Omicron a “variant of concern.” In a technical brief released this week, WHO noted that the variant poses a “very high” global risk. The variant was first identified by scientists in South Africa, and has since been detected in several countries.
Scientists are working to determine how transmissible the variant is,…
