The Alaska Department of Health and Social Services reports another case of the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been detected in an Anchorage resident. This is the second confirmed Omicron case so far in Alaska, but based on rising Omicron cases nationally and globally, Alaska is expecting to see more Omicron cases soon.
The DHSS states that this case was identified through genomic sequencing performed by an out-of-state laboratory from a person who recently tested positive in Anchorage following domestic travel out of state in December. The person, when contacted by a contract tracer, was already isolating at home with mild illness and had outreached close contacts.
State Epidemiologist, Dr. Joe McLaughlin said:
“What do we know about Omicron? We already talked about the fact that this particular variant does spread more easily than other variants. Will omicron cause more severe illness? Again, we don’t know for sure. Some of the early data suggests that it may well be associated with milder illness, and we hope that is the case. Will vaccines work against Omicron? Some of the early studies that have come out on this front indicate that vaccine effectiveness doe seem to be lower with Omicron, but what we’re seeing is that if you get a booster dose, for example, if you have received two doses of let’s say one of the mRNA vaccines and then you get a booster dose, that dramatically increases the vaccine effectiveness against COVID illness and also against prevention of a more severe illness. We are seeing that even in people who have not received a booster dose but have had their full series seem to be well protected against hospitalization and death, however, we are still seeing some hospitalization and death in breakthrough cases.”
Protective measures against the variant remain the same as for the other COVID virus variants, according to the DHSS, which encourages Alaskans to get vaccinated against COVID-19 if they haven’t already done so and to get boosted if they are eligible.
