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The omicron coronavirus variant was confirmed Thursday in an unvaccinated Hawaii resident with no recent travel history, state health officials said.

The adult had been infected with COVID-19 a year ago, isn't currently hospitalized and had “mild-to-moderate” symptoms, including headache, body aches and cough, Hawaii Epidemiologist Dr. Sarah Kemble said.

She wouldn't identify the patient other than to say the person lives on the island of Oahu.

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Originally posted by CHAS:
Bill Ackman
@BillAckman
·
Nov 28
A thought. While it is too early to have definitive data, early reported data suggest that the Omicron virus causes ‘mild to moderate’ symptoms (less severity) and is more transmissible. If this turns out to be true, this is bullish not bearish for markets.

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Five of 12 people who were diagnosed with COVID-19 after attending a Milwaukee County wedding Nov. 27 were infected with the omicron variant, state and city health officials said.

All 12 are California residents, a news release from the state Department of Health Services said.

The DHS and the City of Milwaukee Health Department are investigating the outbreak from the wedding.

A California State lab used genomic sequencing to identify that five of the 12 people diagnosed with COVID-19 were infected with the omicron variant, the news release said. Genomic sequencing data is not yet available for the other cases.

According to DHS, one of the individuals attended the wedding after returning from international travel.

"The 12 individuals diagnosed with COVID-19 are between the ages of 18-49. All individuals were vaccinated, and most had received boosters. They are mildly symptomatic and no one has been hospitalized," the news release, issued late Friday, said.

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The Omicron variant of the virus that causes COVID-19 likely acquired at least one of its mutations by picking up a snippet of genetic material from another virus - possibly one that causes the common cold - present in the same infected cells, according to researchers.

This genetic sequence does not appear in any earlier versions of the coronavirus, called SARS-CoV-2, but is ubiquitous in many other viruses including those that cause the common cold, and also in the human genome, researchers said.

By inserting this particular snippet into itself, Omicron might be making itself look "more human," which would help it evade attack by the human immune system, said Venky Soundararajan of Cambridge, Massachusetts-based data analytics firm nference, who led the study https://osf.io/f7txy posted on Thursday on the website OSF Preprints.

This could mean the virus transmits more easily, while only causing mild or asymptomatic disease. Scientists do not yet know whether Omicron is more infectious than other variants, whether it causes more severe disease or whether it will overtake Delta as the most prevalent variant. It may take several weeks to get answers to these questions.

Cells in the lungs and in the gastrointestinal system can harbor SARS-CoV-2 and common-cold coronaviruses simultaneously, according to earlier studies. Such co-infection sets the scene for viral recombination, a process in which two different viruses in the same host cell interact while making copies of themselves, generating new copies that have some genetic material from both "parents."

This new mutation could have first occurred in a person infected with both pathogens when a version of SARS-CoV-2 picked up the genetic sequence from the other virus, Soundararajan and colleagues said in the study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed.