The Omicron variant of Covid-19 may be present in Burlington at a low level, test results from the city’s Wastewater Monitoring Program showed late Wednesday.
Officials detected “very limited” mutation signatures associated with Omicron in samples from Burlington’s East and Main Wastewater Treatment Plants, which serve all of the city except the New North End, according to a press release early Friday afternoon from Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger’s office.
The mayor’s office said the finding is not considered definitive until it has been confirmed through genomic sequencing of a laboratory-confirmed positive PCR test result.Â
Additionally, the volume of mutation signatures associated with Omicron that have been identified is low enough to suggest that, if the variant is present in Burlington, it is not yet widespread, the mayor’s office said.
Vermont has not yet identified Omicron in any Covid-19-positive patients, state Health Commissioner Mark Levine said in a statement on Friday.
But the variant has been confirmed in 39 states, including all of Vermont’s neighboring states and Quebec, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Levine said Weinberger’s announcement “does not come as a surprise.”
“I fully expect that our genetic sequencing results will confirm the first case soon, perhaps in a matter of days,” he said.
Omicron was first reported in the U.S. in California on Dec. 1, although scientists say that means it likely was circulating here days or weeks earlier.
“As public health officials have projected, we now have an indication that the more transmissible variant of Covid-19 that was first detected in South Africa may be here in Burlington,” Weinberger said in the statement on Friday.
The city began testing for evidence of Omicron two weeks ago, according to the press release, and will continue to test in the coming weeks.
The mayor’s office said wastewater monitoring data cannot be used to determine how many people may be sick with Covid-19, but can be used to indicate trends in the virus over time.
The overall concentration of the coronavirus across the city’s wastewater treatment plants generally has been stable since Thanksgiving, the press release said.
Early data suggests that Omicron could be twice as transmissible as the Delta variant, which is the current dominant strain of the virus, according to the mayor’s office.
Evidence also suggests that, while Omicron may evade immunity from infection for individuals who have been fully vaccinated or infected, the mayor’s office said, vaccines remain effective against severe outcomes.
“Omicron shows all the signs of becoming the dominant strain worldwide,” Levine said. “We are hopeful that it won’t lead to more severe illness and hospitalization, but it is still too early to tell.”