HOUSTON (CN) — The omicron variant has killed its first known victim in the U.S., an unvaccinated Houston-area man in his 50s who died Monday after testing positive.
“The death reported this afternoon was of a man between the ages of 50-60 years old who was unvaccinated and had been infected with Covid-19 previously. The individual was at higher risk of severe complications from Covid-19 due to his unvaccinated status and had underlying health conditions,” Harris County Public Health announced Monday.
Omicron has displaced the delta variant as the dominant coronavirus strain circulating in Harris County, whose seat is Houston, with Houston Methodist Hospital’s director of microbiology Dr. Wesley Long reporting on Sunday that the new variant accounts for 82% of its symptomatic patients since late last week.
The rapid spread – less than one month after scientists first discovered omicron in South Africa – has not been accompanied by a corresponding increase in Covid patients hospitalized in the Texas Medical Center, a Houston district that includes 21 hospitals, and scientists are racing to understand more about the variant.
“We don’t yet know how easily it spreads, the severity of illness it causes, or how well available vaccines and medications work against it,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a bulletin Monday.
“More data are needed to know if omicron infections, and especially reinfections and breakthrough infections in people who are fully vaccinated, cause more severe illness or death than infection with other variants,” it added.
Word of the Harris County man’s death came shortly after Lina Hidalgo, the county’s chief elected official, raised the area’s Covid-19 threat level from yellow (moderate) to orange (significant).
“At this level, unvaccinated residents should minimize contacts with others, avoid any medium or large gatherings and only visit permissible businesses that follow public health guidance,” according to an advisory from Harris County Public Health and the Houston Health Department.
Doctors and nurses, weary from what some are calling the fifth wave of the coronavirus since the pandemic took hold in the U.S. in early 2020, expect omicron transmission to mushroom as families gather for Christmas.
“There is no question that we are concerned with the holidays. People are going to drop their guard,” Dr. Joseph Varon, chief of critical care at United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, told KHOU 11.
The federal government is ready to assist hospitals that become overwhelmed with coronavirus patients.
In a speech Tuesday afternoon, President Joe Biden will detail his Covid winter plan, which will include making 500 million free rapid tests available for Americans and readying 1,000 troops trained as medics for deployment to struggling hospitals.
The government is also preparing to disburse ventilators from the national stockpile and the Federal Emergency Management Agency is sending out hundreds of ambulances with paramedic teams, starting with New York, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Arizona, to transport people to hospitals with open beds, should the hospitals in their area fill up with omicron-stricken patients.
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