(KNSI) – Medical experts in Central Minnesota are getting ready for the arrival of the omicron variant. The latest variant has been confirmed in at least one Minneapolis resident who visited New York and another connected to Minnesota State University in Mankato.
CentraCare Care COVID-19 Incident Commander Dr. George Morris says he thinks it’s only a matter of time before the omicron variant is found in the region.”I expect we’re going to get a case up here. If it’s in Minneapolis associated with travel, if it’s in Mankato associated with a university setting and/or travel, we have universities and we have people that travel here in Central Minnesota. And it’ll come, it’ll happen.”
He says there are a lot of unknowns about the newest variant, including how effective vaccine immunity will be against the latest version of the virus. Dr. Morris says time will tell how severe the omicron variant is.
“We’ll have to see how severe it is because certainly it seems like right now, it’s spreading in a little younger population. Those are the cases were identifying and it seems to be associated with call it that normal level of symptoms. Which is not zero, but just kind of normal.”
He says that data appears to show the variant isn’t as severe or as deadly as the delta variant or the original virus.
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