Washington labs search for omicron variant

WASHINGTON — Washington State researchers are on the lookout for the omicron COVID-19 variant after the first case in the United States was confirmed in California.

The Department of Health’s lab in Shoreline is actively checking for the variant.

So are the University of Washington and several private labs.

“It remains to be seen, obviously, but I think that it is probably already here,” said Pavitra Roychoudhury, acting instructor of laboratory medicine at UW Medicine, in a video released by UW.

State officials said samples from about 10% of positive cases in Washington go through genomic sequencing.

“That process takes a few days, at least, and it’s a highly-batched process. And that’s what leads to that lag of between one to two weeks in most labs,” Roychoudhury said.

State health officials said it’s not known yet how contagious omicron might be, nor how it responds to COVID-19 treatments.

“There are a lot of things we don’t know about this new variant, but what we do know is that vaccines work,” said Dr. Umair Shah, Washington’s health secretary. “We recognize vaccine effectiveness will be there for this new variant, we just don’t know to what degree.”

Dr. Shah again urged people to get vaccinated and get a booster.

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