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Second omicron case in NC; hospitals worry holidays will bring case surge

A second case of the coronavirus' omicron variant has been confirmed in North Carolina, a researcher said Wednesday.

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By
Leslie Moreno
, WRAL multimedia journalist
RALEIGH, N.C. — A second case of the coronavirus' omicron variant has been confirmed in North Carolina, a researcher said Wednesday.
Dirk Dittmer, an immunologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said he couldn't provide specifics about the person infected with the fast-spreading variant, only that the case wasn't in Charlotte, where North Carolina's first omicron case was confirmed last week.

"It appears that the virus is getting around the state," Dittmer told WRAL News.

On Thursday morning, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health and Human Services said the second case was identified in a person from the eastern half of the state.

The delta variant remains the dominant strain of the virus in North Carolina, she said, noting that it has been found in more than 95 percent of DNA tests on virus specimens in the state.

Still, Duke University Health System already worries the new variant could once again swamp hospitals with very sick patients.

More than 1,500 people statewide are hospitalized with COVID-19, and health experts say that number will quickly increase if people don't protect themselves during the holiday season.

The transmissibility seems to be much more increased," Dr. Thomas Denny, Chief Operating Officer of the Duke Human Vaccine Institute. "It appears that the clinical course, or the symptoms, are a bit less for omicron. The one area that we’re concerned about, if you have much more transmissibility and have many more infections at any one point, the chance you can overwhelm the health systems just becomes that much more likely because you have so many more people that are infected so the chances that some will have complications, or a high number will have complications, are there."

"We are really concerned that we are beginning to see the post-travel impact now in the hospitalizations of people,” said Dr. Becky Smith, an infectious disease expert with Duke Health.

Coronavirus infections and related hospitalizations have been rising steadily since Thanksgiving. The 3,755 new cases reported Wednesday were a 14 percent jump from a week ago, and the 3,200 cases a day over the past week is the highest the state's average has been in two months.

When combined with holiday travel and the start of the flu season, the omicron variant and the still-present delta variant of the virus create a perfect storm for infections, Smith said. She added that she believes omicron will be the dominant variant in North Carolina by January.

"It's really going to put a strain on ICU capacity, really hospital bed capacity," she said. "[This is] just a plea to anyone who has not yet been vaccinated: Please protect yourself."

Already, 86 percent of the COVID-19 patients at Duke Health's hospitals are unvaccinated, as are 96 percent of those in intensive care.

“What I really wanted to do was reach out to everyone, to just remind you that vaccination remains highly protective against severe disease, hospitalization and death," Smith said.

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