Story at a glance
- A general practitioner based in north London has reported seeing “spots” on 15 percent of kids with a confirmed case of omicron.
- Kids also experienced fatigue, loss of appetite and headaches, according to the physician.
- The main symptoms of the omicron variant, which first developed in South Africa, are fever, runny nose, coughing, sore throat and fatigue.
A London physician has reported noticing some children who contract COVID-19’s omicron variant develop a rash, The Sun reported.
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The physician, David Lloyd, is a general practitioner based in the north of London who told The Sun that out of all the children he has treated confirmed to have the omicron variant, “spots” have shown up on about 15 percent.
“We’ve always had a small cohort of patients with COVID who are getting funny rashes, but up to 15 percent of the Omicron children are getting an unusual rash,” Lloyd told the publication. “So we’re starting to learn a little bit more about the virus and we are starting to look out for it.”
Shortly after spreading in South Africa, where the variant first developed, the first case of omicron in the United States was detected in a person in San Francisco on Dec. 1, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
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According to the agency, the first American to contract omicron had traveled to South Africa and returned to the U.S. on Nov. 22. The person reported mild symptoms, the CDC added.
By Dec. 3, the variant was found in a handful of other states, including Colorado, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Missouri and Arizona, as well as New York, where five cases of omicron were found, according to North Jersey.
Although experts are unclear on the severity of the new variant, early modeling of the virus suggests that it is twice as contagious as the delta variant, according to The New York Times.
In South Africa, the number of new COVID cases continues to increase due to a “fourth wave” of the virus stemming from the omicron variant, the publication added. Since the variant was detected in November, it has become the dominant strain in the country.
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