Berkeley Omicron Case Tied To Travel: City

BERKELEY, CA — A Berkeley resident who tested for the omicron variant last week is among 12 local cases linked to travel within the United States last month, the city of Berkeley and Alameda County Public Health departments announced jointly.

The cases involved people ages 18 to 49 and are linked to a Nov. 27 Wisconsin wedding in which one of the attendees had recently returned from international travel, officials said.

All 12 cases involved people who were vaccinated, and most had received booster shots, officials said. The cases are described as “mildly symptomatic,” and none involved hospitalizations. Officials released no additional identifying information about the residents who tested positive.

“A State lab used genomic sequencing to identify the five infected with the COVID-19 Omicron variant, which is now being detected around the country and the world,” officials said.

“Alameda County and the City of Berkeley Public Health Departments are investigating these cases with the support of the California Department of Public Health. Close contacts are being notified and provided with isolation and quarantine guidance.”

Omicron was discovered last month in South Africa, where it triggered a case explosion.

The variant contains a "very unusual constellation of mutations" that appear to make it more contagious than the highly transmissible delta variant, The New York Times reports.

Early indications are that it poses a higher risk of reinfection than other variants, but the WHO warned against overreaction until more is known about the variant, The Associated Press reports.

Dr. John Swartzberg, a professor emeritus at UC Berkeley's School of Public Health, said it's unclear whether omicron's "physical structures" will diminish the effectiveness of vaccines in a televised interview on NBC Bay Area.

"It's important for people to realize that these new variants may have physical structures that suggest it might not respond to the immunity we got from the vaccines," he told the television station.

"We can deal with this, but I wish we didn't have to."

Dr. Angelique Coetzee, an infectious disease expert who chairs the South African Medical Association, said it's "premature" to draw sweeping conclusions about omicron, The Guardian reports.

"It's all speculation at this stage. It may be it's highly transmissible, but so far the cases we are seeing are extremely mild," she said.

"Maybe two weeks from now I will have a different opinion, but this is what we are seeing. So are we seriously worried? No. We are concerned and we watch what's happening. But for now we're saying, 'OK: there's a whole hype out there. [We're] not sure why.'"