Wall Street indices are giving up intraday gains after the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed the first case of the new COVID variant of concern in the United States.
Symptoms are mild and improving
Dr Anthony Fauci – chief medical advisor to the U.S. President, said the individual was fully vaccinated. After travelling in South Africa, he returned to California on November 22nd and tested positive last Sunday.
The individual is self-quarantining, and all close contacts have been contacted, and all close contacts, thus far, have tested negative. We feel good that this patient not only had mild symptoms but actually the symptoms appear to be improving.
Earlier on Wednesday, former FDA commissioner Dr Scott Gottlieb said he doesn’t expect Omicron to outcompete Delta in terms of resistance, virulence, or transmissibility. He’s also confident that existing COVID vaccines will offer “meaningful” protection against the new variant.
S&P 500, Nasdaq Composite, and Dow Jones are now down nearly 2.0% from their respective intraday highs.
California Governor cautions against panicking
Governor Gavin Newsom cautioned the people of California against panicking but recommended taking precautions, including wearing a mask in an indoor setting and getting vaccinated or boosted. He’ll be briefing the press at 03:00 p.m. ET.
After emerging in South Africa last week, Omicron – the most heavily mutated variant of the Coronavirus has already been spotted in 23 countries, the World Health Organisation revealed on Wednesday.
At the start of this week, the White House imposed travel restrictions that disabled noncitizens from returning to the United States if they visited South Africa or seven other surrounding nations in the past two weeks.
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