MORGANTOWN – The state has its first official omicron variant case, COVID-19 Czar Clay Marsh said Thursday.
The CDC notified the state just minutes before Thursday’s briefing began, he said, that its surveillance study identified a single omicron case in the state. “We know that the omicron has been here, is now starting to grow in West Virginia like other places.”
Gov. Jim Justice commented, “It’s not good news, but we knew it was coming, did we not?”
Answering a question from The Dominion Post, Marsh explained how the assorted variants are identified and how the CDC came to know about the omicron case.
The CDC works with companies such as LabCorp to get case information, he said. LabCorp and others take positive PCR tests and sequence them to identify which variant the patient has been infected with.
Most tests are sequenced through the state lab, he said, but a smaller number go through LabCorp and other private labs. In this case, a private lab identified the omicron case and informed the CDC, which passed the information to the state.
The state also works with Q Laboratories in Charleston, WVU and Marshall to sequence postivie tests and identify variants, he said. The most recent run, performed last week, was 100% delta. Another sequencing run is set for this week in the state lab. “We are confident that very soon we will also start to see the omicron variant in those samples.”
A late afternoon release from the Department of Health and Human Resources reported that the patient is an unvaccinated Marion County resident.
Justice and the team again urged boosters, especially with omicron here. “Without any questions the vaccines work,” he said. But the potency does decrease. “The boosters are the key right now in so many ways. … If you’re six months out, getting that first isn’t doing you much good at all.”
Marsh talked about how the current surge is straining hospital systems in border states. Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland are seeing hospitalizations approach historic levels. Maryland has doubled hospitalizations in one month, and they’re all delta cases.
Omicron is three times as infectious as delta, he said. In the U.S., omicron cases grew from .4% of all cases on Dec. 4 to 2.9% in just a week.
Joint Interagency Task Force Director Gen James Hoyer echoed the message.
“We have plenty of vaccines available,” he said. “But there’s a national supply chain challenge in antibodies and the Pfizer therapeutic soon to come out will likely be the same.”
Prior to holiday gatherings, Marsh suggested, everyone should get a rapid antigen test, including kids, who can be infected without being symptomatic.
Tweet David Beard @dbeardtdp Email dbeard@dominionpost.com
