On Friday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that most of the 43 Omicron cases detected in America as yet were in fully vaccinated people, and around 33% of them had received a booster shot.

The U.S. CDC said that 43 known to have been infected with the Omicron COVID-19 variant had mild symptoms, but 34 people had been fully inoculated, and 14 of them had already had booster shots. However, 5 of those infections occurred less than two weeks after the extra dose before full protection contributes.

Moreover, the CDC COVID-19 Response Team reported that one inoculated patient was admitted to the hospital for two days, and no fatalities have been reported so far. However, case research have identified exposures linked with domestic and international travel, large public gatherings, and household spread.

The first known US Omicron variant case was detected on December 1 in a fully inoculated person who had toured to South Africa. The researchers added that the initial date of symptoms start was 15 November in a person with international travel history. And 4 of them reported international travel during two weeks preceding symptoms start off receiving a COVID-positive result.

Delta Still Accounts for 99% of US Cases

Furthermore, they said 79 percent of infected people had been fully protected with either one dose of Janssen/Johnson & Johnson’s jab, or two doses of Moderna’s or Pfizer-BioNTech’s jab. Five of the fourteen who received booster shots had boosted at least 14-days before and should have had maximum immune protection.

While the numbers are very small, Omicron cases add to growing concerns that present coronavirus jabs might offer less protection against the more transmissible new version of COVID-19. Omicron has been detected through testing in nearly twenty-two States to date after being discovered in South Africa and Hong Kong in late last month.

The highly contagious Delta variant still accounts for over 99 percent of all COVID-19 cases in America. But South African reports show that the new Omicron variant is more transmissible. The CDC warned that even if most infections are mild, a more infectious variant could result in enough COVID cases to overwhelm health systems.

Three COVID vaccine Shots Provides 75% Protection Against Omicron Variant

The United States has approved COVID-19 vaccine booster shots for all US citizens ages 16 and up. In addition, the Food and Drug Administration amended its emergency-use approval of Pfizer/BioNTech’s jab to allow Americans aged 16 and 17 to get a booster dose at least 6-months after their initial vaccination. The U.S. CDC also signed off on the doses.

Nearly 4.7M American youths in that age bracket are fully inoculated, and over 2.5M of them are 180-days past their primary doses. And only the Pfizer-made vaccine has been approved for use in the age bracket.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the US CDC director, said Friday that the weekly average of COVID cases in America was up 37 percent and average fatalities a day increased 28 percent.

The U.S. is reporting over 1200 fatalities daily, on average, and will exceed 0.8M total COVID-related deaths in the upcoming days.

1) First data from the UK seems to indicate that there is little protection from Omicron for people vaccinated twice, but the booster dose seems to be 75% effective against symptomatic disease. Early days, wide confidence intervals. This looks likely better for severe disease. pic.twitter.com/jvMrQlzBqB

— Florian Krammer (@florian_krammer) December 11, 2021

In addition, British scientists have also cautioned that two shots of coronavirus jab aren’t enough to prevent catching the Omicron variant. Preliminary analysis of the United Kingdom Delta and Omicron cases found that the jabs were less effective at preventing the new highly transmissible variant. But an additional dose stops nearly 75 percent of people from getting any COVID-19 symptoms.