The Omicron COVID-19 variant has made its way to B.C. Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry confirmed one case at a Tuesday (Nov. 30) press conference.
She said the infected person, who lives in the Fraser Health region, is currently self-isolating. They returned from Nigeria not long ago.
So far, 204 people across B.C. have been identified as having recently travelled to Omicron-affected countries, Henry said.
“And the quarantine service, working with our teams, have connected with all of these individuals over the past few days. They’ve been sent for PCR testing and are in isolation,” she explained.
Henry said a robust whole-genome sequencing program helped to identify the province’s first Omicron case.
At this time, she added that B.C. isn’t seeing any widespread transmission of the variant.
According to Henry, there’s still a lot of information being looked at in regards to the new variant, including how transmissible it is and if it makes people sicker.
More to come…
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