COVID-19 Omicron likely already in Beach Cities
by Mark McDermott No cases of the newly emerging Omicron variant of the novel coronavirus have been officially reported in the Beach Cities, nor has there been an uptick in cases indicative of a winter surge. But Dr. William Kim, the chief medical officer for the Beach Cities Health District, said Omicron has almost certainly already arrived locally, and some kind of winter surge is likely to follow. “I haven’t seen any reports of Omicron in the Beach Cities, but I’m sure it’s here,” Kim said. “Because it’s so adept at infecting individuals, there’ve been 15 cases reported in LA County, but there’s probably thousands and thousands of cases out there. We are just not sequencing every time somebody comes down with a positive [test]. If we were sequencing more, we would find that it’s up there, and will probably be the primary variant within a month or two.” The new variant’s extreme contagiousness, combined with waning effectiveness of vaccine shots taken earlier in the year, lingering unvaccinated populations, and the increase in indoor gatherings over the holiday season will almost inevitably lead to more COVID-19 cases. But so far, no spike has appeared in the Beach Cities. Kim…
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