Omicron was in the U.S. before being given name

They wore fluorescent wigs and capes with gold tassels. They arrived in kneehigh white platform boots and with feathered wings affixed to their backs. Dressed like their favorite characters or just wearing street clothes, they packed into Manhattan’s main convention hall — some 53,000 of them — over three days in November to celebrate their love of Japanese animation shows known as anime.

In the crowd was Peter Mcginn, a 30year-old health care analyst in town from Minneapolis. He attended discussion panels, chatted with strangers about his anime podcast and, at night, sang karaoke with friends. After flying home, he learned that one friend from the convention — an anime fan from North Carolina — had just tested positive for the coronavirus. In the days to come, many more of his friends from the convention would test positive, as well. Coughing and feeling tired, Mcginn also took a test. He had the virus, too.

That was Nov. 23, a day before most scientists had even heard of the new variant that was tearing across southern Africa.

The World Health Organization had not yet even given the variant a name — omicron. But it was already present in the United States, undetected.

That became apparent last week, when health authorities in Minnesota examined the virus samples in a batch of recent tests. One of them — from Mcginn — showed omicron’s telltale mutations.

His infection, which was announced by Minnesota health authorities Thursday, is the first known instance of omicron spreading within the United States. “I’m essentially patient zero,” he said in an interview from Minneapolis on Friday, though he wonders how he contracted it. “It’s still a mystery.”

He may never know. The announcement came more than 10 days after the anime convention ended, leaving health authorities far behind, even before they realized the race against omicron had begun.

Meanwhile, several dozen cases of the new omicron variant of the coronavirus have been identified in the United States, a number that is “likely to rise,” Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Sunday on ABC’S “This Week.”

New York City health officials have sent tens of thousands of emails and text messages to the convention attendees, urging them to get tested. But so far authorities have yet to confirm any transmission of omicron at the Anime NYC convention, which was held Nov. 19 to 21.

It is possible that the convention contributed little to omicron’s spread. But it appears more likely that the virus is once again outpacing a public health response that is simply unable to keep up. (On Saturday, Connecticut officials said that a man in his 60s from their state fell sick with the omicron variant in late November, days after a family member had returned from attending the anime convention.)

In the nearly two years since the novel coronavirus first began circulating in this country, the United States has built enough capacity to test more people than any other country. It is now sequencing some 14% of positive PCR tests, searching for mutations and identifying variants.

Some municipalities, like New York City, and states, like Massachusetts, built out large-scale contact tracing organizations. Most of the U.S. population — 60% — is vaccinated. Just a few weeks ago, before omicron was identified, there was widespread hope that the pandemic, in parts of this country at least, was easing.

But amid tens of thousands of new delta infections in the United States each day, omicron’s landfall and spread are easily hidden. Many coronavirus infections are asymptomatic or have only minor symptoms, slipping under the radar.

It remains unclear if the anime convention was a superspreader event. “We haven’t found evidence of widespread transmission at the convention,” Adam Shrier, a spokesman for New York City’s contact tracing program, Test and Trace Corps, wrote in an email.

It is also unclear whether Mcginn was infected at the convention or by a fellow attendee. But he spent successive days at the convention and evenings with other conventiongoers.

Of the roughly 30 people he recalls socializing with in New York City, about half have since tested positive for the coronavirus, Mcginn said. However, none of the states where they live have announced whether those people also had the omicron variant.

Much remains unknown about omicron, including how deadly it is or the degree of protection that COVID-19 vaccines provide against it. But epidemiologists are once again talking about flattening the curve, through mask wearing and more cautious behavior. And they are urging action now, to avoid a repeat of the mistakes made in March 2020, when officials were slow to understand just how quickly the virus was spreading.

Over the past four days, New York’s genome sequencing program has detected seven omicron cases among residents in New York City, although health authorities have provided little information about the cases.

“All of these cases are believed to be unrelated to the recent Anime NYC convention at the Javits Center,” the governor’s office said in a news release Saturday morning.

New York’s surveillance program for screening variants is relatively robust, but it comes with a lag, as do similar programs elsewhere. It typically takes between four and eight days from the time a sample is swabbed to identify which variant caused the infection. That means any alarming increase in new cases that is noticed today may already be a week old.

Mcginn’s experience illustrates the difficulties of contact tracing. He flew into La Guardia Airport on Nov. 18, excited to link up with other anime fans and soak up New York. He went out for dinner and drinks, stayed with two friends in an Airbnb in Hell’s Kitchen and sang karaoke in Koreatown on a Saturday night. During the day, he attended the anime conference at the Javits Center.

Tian Chang, 29, one of the artists, said she felt safe from COVID-19 at first, with many attendees wearing masks, as the convention required.

Still, her worries grew, as the crowds did. She recalled “an explosion of attendees,” with “crowds shoulder to shoulder in some areas.” From her table, she watched as masks came off while people ate, chatted with friends or found an empty corner to take a nap.