Federal health officials say that they are expanding the search for Omicron in the U.S.

Politics|Federal wellness officials accidental that they are expanding the hunt for Omicron successful the U.S.

• Nov. 30, 2021, 2:34 p.m. ET

Top national wellness officials said connected Tuesday that they were expanding a surveillance programme astatine immoderate of the largest U.S. airports arsenic portion of a sprawling effort to place and incorporate what could beryllium the archetypal cases of the Omicron coronavirus variant successful the United States.

Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director, said astatine a White House quality league that the bureau was “actively looking” for the variant but had not recovered a lawsuit truthful acold among the galore affirmative microorganism samples sequenced astir the federation each week. Cases of the Delta variant, which drove a devastating summertime surge, inactive marque up 99.9 percent of those samples.

Four planetary airports — successful New York, Atlanta, Newark and San Francisco — would heighten screening successful a hunt for imaginable Omicron cases, she said.

The caller variant, which carries a startlingly precocious fig of mutations, has caused fears among scientists and wellness officials crossed the globe astir a much transmissible microorganism little susceptible to vaccines. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s apical infectious illness expert, reiterated astatine the quality league that it was inactive excessively aboriginal to genuinely recognize however unsafe the variant mightiness be.

It would apt beryllium weeks earlier scientists studying the caller microorganism were capable to find much astir its properties, helium cautioned. “We are hoping, and I deliberation with bully crushed to consciousness good, that determination volition beryllium immoderate grade of protection,” from disposable vaccines, Dr. Fauci added.

Dr. Walensky said that the C.D.C. was examining ways to marque planetary question safer, perchance by investigating for the microorganism person to a traveler’s formation and “additional post-arrival investigating and quarantine.” She said the C.D.C. was moving with airlines to cod accusation connected passengers that tin beryllium utilized for interaction tracing if a lawsuit of Omicron is discovered.

Dr. Walensky besides described an ongoing home effort to place archetypal cases of the variant, saying that the C.D.C. was holding regular calls with section wellness officials, nationalist wellness organizations and authorities laboratories, which assistance to series samples.

The United States had already made important advancement this twelvemonth successful scaling up the fig of microorganism samples examined for imaginable worrisome variants, she said, sequencing astir 80,000 samples each week and 1 successful 7 affirmative P.C.R. trial samples, a proposition that it mightiness not beryllium agelong earlier scientists find the virus.

Dr. Fauci and Dr. Walensky continued to impulse radical to get their boosters, which they said would springiness radical much extortion successful the look of the caller variant, if it arrives successful the United States. Jeffrey D. Zients, the White House’s Covid-19 effect coordinator, said that implicit 100 cardinal afloat vaccinated American adults were eligible for the doses but had not yet received one.

A surge of protective antibodies aft a booster changeable would apt inactive beryllium formidable against Omicron, helping to forestall terrible illness, Dr. Fauci said, adjacent though the vaccine was developed to combat disconnected the archetypal signifier of the coronavirus.

The Coronavirus Pandemic: Key Things to Know

Mr. Zients said that the national authorities was already reasoning astir what a vaccination run with a newly-formulated changeable mightiness look like, arsenic pharmaceutical companies survey the possibility. “This includes conversations astir the astir due regulatory pathway for reappraisal and authorizations,” helium said.

Dr. Janet Woodcock, the acting Food and Drug Administration commissioner, said successful a connection Tuesday that the bureau was monitoring the caller variant, citing guidance regulators released earlier this year astir however it would measure caller variant-specific vaccines connected an expedited timeline.

Two apical national vaccine regulators who precocious departed the bureau argued successful a Washington Post sentiment column this week that younger, healthier radical with a little urgent request for a booster dose mightiness beryllium amended disconnected waiting for a retooled vaccine that much precisely targets a worrisome caller variant.