With the omicron variant of COVID-19 detected this week in Idaho and Washington, Idaho medical officials are continuing to stress the importance of getting vaccinated.

The city of Moscow issued a news release Friday afternoon saying the city’s wastewater testing program has identified the presence of the COVID-19 omicron variant in recent test results.

Carole Moehrle, director of Public Health – Idaho North Central District said as of Friday “public health has received no confirmation of the omicron variant in human lab samples. However, with other cases of omicron in the Northwest and Boise area we know it is just a matter of time before it is lab-confirmed as well. Because it is not feasible to test every lab specimen for COVID variants it would be possible that a case could go unnoticed or that a two- to three-week delay to obtain genetic sequencing could preclude knowing about a current COVID-19 variant immediately.”

It was announced earlier this week that a 50-year-old Ada County resident who had traveled out of state was confirmed with the omicron variant. The patient experienced only mild symptoms, the Central District Health Department reported.

In addition, it has been reported that the omicron variant has likely been detected at the University of Washington following several samples collected by the Husky Coronavirus Testing research study. Both cases are the first to be confirmed in either state.

Moscow began testing wastewater for the presence of COVID-19 in May 2020. As variants spread in the U.S. the city also initiated a variant testing routine with the first results received on April 13, 2021. These tests indicate the different variants present in the wastewater samples, including the delta variant last summer and now the omicron variant.

On Friday, Idaho state medical experts discussed the ongoing pandemic and the emergence of the omicron variant in the state during an online question-and-answer session sponsored by the Idaho Statesman newspaper in Boise.

Drs. Christine Hahn, state epidemiologist, David Pate, former chief executive officer for St. Luke’s Hospital, and Christopher Ball, director of the Idaho Bureau of Laboratories participated in the session. Omicron, Hahn said, “appears to be more transmissible than delta or the previous variant, two to four times more transmissible. We don’t know about the severity; it doesn’t appear to be any worse (than previous variants). But it’s early on.”

Although much is still unknown about the latest variant, research shows that people who have been vaccinated and have received their booster shots, she added, have “really good” protection.

Ball added that with the omicron variant spreading in Idaho the state laboratory has the infrastructure in place to detect it.

“We’re in a good position to detect omicron at this point,” Ball said. “We just really don’t know what it’s going to look like in Idaho.”

The video session was moderated by Ian Stevenson, a public health reporter for the Statesman. When the session was opened to questions from the public, Pate was asked whether there is any cure for those who have had COVID-19 and have lost their sense of taste and smell.

“We’re not aware of anything you can do, it just takes time to regain smell and taste,” Pate said. With COVID-19, “there’s a lot of bad stuff that happens, not just death. It’s a big deal for people if you can’t smell food. It doesn’t taste good.” He added that doctors have seen cases where some people have lost a dramatic amount of weight because they don’t want to eat after losing their sense of taste and smell.

Pate also talked about the problems created by misinformation about the coronavirus and vaccines that are spreading on social media, scaring people and preventing them from getting the vaccine.

One common piece of misinformation, he said, is that “thousands of people have died from the COVID vaccine. That’s not true. … You’re just scaring people when you say that.”

It’s also not true that the vaccines have caused a 20-fold increase in cancer.

“It’s doesn’t really make sense,” Pate said. “Things that cause cancer — you have to have prolonged exposure to it. This is clearly not correct but it is scaring people. … We have had more issues from the virus causing problems than we have from the vaccines.”

Hahn said that medical experts are not yet seeing a surge in cases in Idaho but “we are concerned. The numbers (of infections) have been coming down since late September but that has flattened out.We’re worried we’re going to start seeing a rise. Right now, we have not seen a surge.”

Pate also recommended that children as young as five years old get vaccinated, even though most children who have gotten the disease don’t get very sick.

The main reason to vaccinate children, Pate said, is because they are one of the biggest sources of spreading the disease.

“If we want to slow down spread (of the COVID-19 virus) we have to slow down transmission,” he said

Friday marked the one-year anniversary of the first health care workers in the region to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

Staff members at Pullman Regional Hospital, Tri-State Hospital and Gritman Medical Center received the first shots, which gradually became available to the general public in the following months.

Public Health – Idaho North Central District reported 18 new cases Friday, including two each in Lewis, Clearwater and Idaho counties; seven in Latah County and five in Nez Perce County.

Whitman County had six new cases, no new update were reported in Garfield and Asotin County counties.

No new deaths from COVID-19 were reported Friday.

Hedberg may be contacted at kathyhedberg@gmail.com or (208) 983-2326.