Costumed attendees take a break throughout Anime NYC at the Jacob Okay. Javits Convention Center in New York City on November 20, 2021.Kena Betancur/AFP by way of Getty Images
A man who tested positive for the Omicron coronavirus variant says 15 of his friends are also sick.
The man and a group of 30 individuals attended an anime convention in New York City final month.
It’s unclear if his friends also have the Omicron variant, however well being officers are investigating.
A Minnesota man who attended an anime convention in New York final month — and later tested positive for the Omicron coronavirus variant — has reportedly informed well being officers that 15 of his friends have also contracted COVID-19.
It’s unclear if any of these people also caught the Omicron variant, well being officers informed media shops. The man was one of the primary reported circumstances of the Omicron variant within the United States, prompting questions of whether or not the variant unfold all through the convention, which tens of hundreds of individuals attended.
“It’s hard to say that it is a ‘superspreader.’ Certainly we’re concerned about that,” Kathy Como-Sabetti, supervisor of the COVID-19 epidemiology part for the Minnesota (*15*) of Public Health, informed The New York Times.
Officials in New York and Minnesota and with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are investigating the variant’s attainable unfold and tracing the man’s contacts, in accordance with The Washington Post.
“We don’t know if we’ll see a lot of Omicron, or we’ll see a lot of Delta,” Kris Ehresmann, the director of the Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Prevention, and Control Division at the Minnesota (*15*) of Health, informed The Post. “But we’re likely to see a lot of COVID.”
The man had attended the late-November convention as half of a group of 30 individuals from throughout the United States — half of whom at the moment are sick, he informed well being officers.
Convention organizers famous that it is nonetheless unclear the place the man contracted the Omicron variant and he could not have even picked it up at the convention at all. Organizers mentioned all occasion attendees had been required to put on masks and have at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
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“There have been no other mass cases reported from our event, and we are now way past two weeks” for the reason that convention ended, Kelly Comboni, president of LeftField Media, which organized the convention, informed The Times.
The Times also reported Saturday that the man had been absolutely vaccinated and acquired a booster weeks earlier than attending the convention. His signs had been delicate and he has turned over the names and speak to info of some of his friends to well being officers, in accordance with The Times.
New York officers introduced Saturday that three new circumstances of the Omicron variant have appeared in New York state, bringing the entire to eight.
Gov. Kathy Hochul has urged calm and mentioned the Omicron circumstances are “no cause for alarm,” although well being officers are taking the scenario “extremely seriously.”
Though most reported Omicron circumstances up to now have been delicate or asymptomatic, consultants have cautioned that hospitalization information is simply too preliminary to attract conclusions on the variant’s severity.
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