The US takes the lead in the fight against Omicron as the variant has been discovered in four states, namely: California, Minnesota, Colorado, and New York. The first three aforementioned states only had one case each, whose patients experienced mild symptoms because they were COVID-19 vaccinated. The patients from Colorado and California have a recent travel history in Southern Africa but did not take booster shots.

On the other hand, the patient in Minnesota is the first community transmission case of Omicron in the country, which was apparently contracted during an anime convention in NYC.. This alarmed officials of the city, immediately instigating contact tracing as an attempt to stop the spread of the Omicron variant.

As of this writing, the state of New York has detected five cases of the Omicron variant, bringing the total number of Omicron infections in the country to eight.

According to New York Governor Kathy Hochul one of the patients is a 67 year old woman from Long Island who recently came back from South Africa. The woman is only experiencing mild symptoms and has had vaccination. However, the number of doses she has received is yet to be determined. Hochul added that there is no information available for the other active cases.

US Ramps Up Travel Measure on All Travellers from Europe, Including US Citizens

The White House announced that starting next week, all travellers will be required to provide a negative COVID-19 test before entering the country. The test should be done 24 hours prior to departure from the country they came from and regardless of whether they were vaccinated or not.

Prior to the spread of the new mutation, the country accepted vaccinated travellers from Europe who can provide a negative test that was obtained three days within the time of departure. The new testing requirement applies to both foreign nationals and US citizens over the age of 2. Furthermore, the country will be recognize either PCR and antigenic tests for travel purposes.