A New York anime convention has become a focal point for health officials investigating how Omicron spreads

Dr. Catherine Schuster-Bruce
Updated ·2 min read

  • An anime convention could provide early data on how the Omicron virus variant spreads, the CDC said.

  • An attendee of the November event was among the first people in the US to test positive for Omicron.

  • At least 35,000 attendees have been contacted and asked to get tested, the CDC said.

An anime convention held in New York in November could provide an early look into how the new Omicron coronavirus variant spreads, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

An attendee of the three-day event became one of the first people in the US to test positive for the virus. The man, a Minnesota resident, had "mild symptoms" on November 22, got tested on November 24, and has since recovered, according to the CDC.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, CDC director, said in a White House press briefing Tuesday that an investigation into infections at the convention "will likely provide some of the earliest looks in this country on the transmissibility of the variant."

The CDC as well as the Minnesota and New York City health departments have encouraged the 53,000 people who attended the convention to come forward and get tested.

So far, 35,000 attendees from 50 US states and 27 other countries have been contacted to encourage them to get tested, Walensky said.

The Anime NYC convention ran from November 19 to November 21. The CDC didn't mention the vaccination status of the Minnesota man in its statement but recommended that everyone older than 5 should get vaccinated and have a booster dose when eligible.

South Africa first reported the Omicron variant — which has 32 mutations in the part of the virus that infects human cells — to the World Health Organization on November 24.

The variant has now been detected in 57 countries, but it accounted for less than 0.1% of sequenced tests worldwide in the past 60 days, according to a WHO report released Wednesday.

For comparison, the highly infectious Delta variant was picked up on 99.8% of sequenced tests over the same time period, the WHO said.

Clear-cut evidence on Omicron's severity, infectiousness, and existing vaccines' effectiveness against it hasn't yet emerged, the WHO report suggests, but scientists worldwide are racing to find out.

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