Omicron has now been found in Minnesota and Colorado in addition to California. Not too surprising. With so much more travel lately, it will be interesting to see if the new 24 hour pre flight US testing requirements for incoming international flights will slow down the spread or not.
Edited to add: Omicron has now been found in 5 states: also in New York and Hawaii in addition to California, Minnesota and Colorado.
In my highly unknowledgeable opinion, it won’t make any difference to the spread of Omicron — but might help against some future variant.
At this point it seems rather pointless since we don't enforce anything. We aren't requiring people to test after they return, or anything else. Its a nice "gesture" but we aren't doing what is required for actually stopping transmissions. If we want to stop it you'd need to:
1) test before and after a person is on a flight + make vaccination + masks mandatory for all flights
2) quarantine upon entry for 14 days in isolation and with actual enforcement like what they do in taiwan
3) do the same as 1&2 with domestic travel which would make people angry and hostile in the USA.
4) No one wants to do this. Its too unpopular.
I suggest you do a 5 to 7 day "news fast" or at least go that long without reading or hearing the news about the pandemic. The news is bad for you. It causes unnecessary worry and panic. The omicron virus is not more harmful than Delta or any other variant of coronavirus-2019.... yeah maybe if everybody suddenly totally isolated at home for 14 days the virus would all die... which would mean all retail and workplaces and absolutely everything shuts down and closes for 14 days... which won't happen... Society won't tolerate any more lockdowns or restrictions on our freedom.
Like slamming the barn door after the horses have run away- or, flown on a domestic flight to that anime convention and taking omicron along. We need .the same requirements for all flights, domestic and international- proof of vaccination and the negative test. Just feeling so incredibly frustrated right now, how this will ever end...
Karen, I totally agree.
Kim, you have a good point about this revised testing requirement possibly slowing the spread of some future new variant to the U.S.
It's now up to 5 states with NYC having five cases.
The good news is all have had mild symptoms.
However, some health officials believe we will need annual boosters for years. Covid is not going away anytime soon.
