Two Omicrom cases found in Ottawa

[Rickkins]

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-reports-first-two-cases-of-omicron-covid-19-variant-1.5684897

TORONTO -- Two people from Ottawa who returned from a trip to Nigeria have tested positive for the new COVID-19 variant of concern that was first detected in southern Africa, Ontario health officials reported Sunday.

They are Canada's first two cases of the B.1.1.529 variant, also known as omicron.

Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott and Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kieran Moore said in a joint statement that the patients are in isolation and Ottawa Public Health is conducting case and contact management.

 

[dvernb]

They can slow it down by closing borders but they won't stop it!

It appears that this variant may be more contagious but not as severe. We'll see . . .

Some trivia: the variants were being named after letters in the Greek alphabet. When they named Omicron they skipped Nu and Xi. They said they didn't want people confusing Nu with new & they didn't want to use Xi because it was a very common last name. Wanna bet there was a particular Xi they had in mind?

 

[Rickkins]

Quite right, we don't yet know much about it. It may well turn out that our current vaccines will work just fine against it. Part of the freak out seems to be that there are quite a few mutations in this one. To date we just don't know what that means.

Wife and I had our boosters last Monday, so I'm really hoping that'll be good enough, thou I have no problem going for another...