Hawaii’s Omicron Covid-19 Case Count Climbs To 12
Most of the patients were vaccinated, and most had no known connection to others who were infected.
Hawaii’s number of confirmed cases of the omicron variant of Covid-19 has grown to 12 in just over a week — and eight of those local residents infected with the new, highly transmissible variant were fully vaccinated, state health officials announced Friday.
Further, one of the infected patients had received a booster shot, according to state epidemiologist Sarah Kemble.
Still, none of the local individuals with the omicron variant have been hospitalized and Kemble stressed Friday that the best way to protect against severe illness from Covid, including the new strain, is to get vaccinated.
Most of those infected in Hawaii with omicron had no known connection to one another, according to the state’s Department of Health. Several of them had recently traveled to the mainland, Kemble said.
鈥淲e are seeing deeper community spread of the omicron variant within our state,” she said during an online press conference. That’s “not necessarily a surprise,” she added.
The health department continues to track more potential omicron cases among those recently infected with Covid, including four patrons of the downtown nightclub . The agency is advising anyone who’s been to Scarlet Honolulu since Dec. 3 to get tested.
DOH spokesman Brooks Baehr said that the club has been helpful by requiring that all its patrons be vaccinated, and it’s also hosting a Covid booster clinic on Saturday from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., according to a DOH release.
Hawaii’s sample of omicron patients so far has been young – with ages ranging from 4 to 61 and a median of 31, according to Baehr. Kemble said that many of them had engaged in “riskier behavior,” but that they probably felt OK about it because they were fully vaccinated.
Researchers are worried that omicron might spread even more easily than the highly transmissible delta variant, but there’s that omicron won’t cause more severe illness than the previous strains.
The DOH’s contact-tracing team has also reached out to 14 Hawaii residents who were registered to attend the recent Anime NYC convention in New York, Kemble said. That convention in the U.S. Not all of those Hawaii residents are responding to the DOH’s calls, Kemble added. One of the 12 confirmed omicron cases was someone who attended the convention, she said.
Thus far no omicron cases have been reported on the neighbor islands but Kemble said it’s just a matter of time before the variant appears there.
