Marin Party Outbreak Likely Linked To Omicron: Report

San Rafael CA

22 December, 2021

12:10 PM

Description

MARIN COUNTY, CA — At least 28 people contracted COVID-19 earlier this month at a Marin holiday party, and it appears the outbreak has omicron's fingerprints all over it, The San Francisco Chronicle reports. All indications are the hosts of the Dec. 11 party held at Farm House Local followed every reasonable precaution, the report said, noting that the 50 to 60 attendees were all vaccinated and most boosted. All had been tested the day of the event. The infections associated with the party have been mild or asymptomatic, and none required hospitalization, the report said. The party's hosts consulted with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's website for the latest guidance, The Marin Independent Journal reports. "We listened to a speech made by Dr. Fauci, and at the time he was saying, if you're vaccinated there is no reason why you can't have holiday parties," Mike Koeppel, one of the party's hosts, told the news outlet. The party was held indoors but windows were kept open. The state's mask mandate had not gone into effect when the party was held, and facial coverings were not required, according to the report. "The organizers did everything right," Marin Health Officer Dr. Matt Willis told the news outlet. "They limited attendance to people who were fully vaccinated; they requested that people obtain rapid testing before attending." Marin on Friday confirmed its only omicron case, which involved a vaccinated person who recently traveled to the East Coast. Low levels of the hyper-contagious variant were detected in several samples of Marin wastewater, county officials said last week. "We are presuming this is an omicron outbreak in Marin," Willis said of the Dec. 11 event in an interview with ABC 7. The outbreak shows how omicron was able to dethrone delta as the dominant variant in such short order. Federal health officials said Monday that omicron has already become the dominant variant in the U.S. accounting for 73 percent of new infections last week, The Associated Press reports. "It's a harbinger of what we might expect for the next chapter of this pandemic, even in the coming days and weeks, we will see a lot more cases of COVID unfortunately," Willis told the television station.