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The patient was a man in his 50s who was not vaccinated and had an underlying health condition, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said, according to KHOU-11, a CBS-affiliated television station in Houston.
Houston Methodist said on Monday, Dec. 20 that 82 percent of its new cases are omicron after just three weeks of testing for it, KHOU reported.
Omicron accounted for 73 percent of new infections last week, federal health officials announced Monday.
That's nearly a six-fold increase in only one week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said.
It took the Delta variant three months to spread as widely as the Omicron strain has spread in three weeks in the US.
It takes two to three days for Omicron cases to double, according to new data from the CDC, compared to 11 days for the Delta variant.
In the Northeast, 90 percent of new cases are Omicron, the CDC said, adding that the number of Omicron-linked cases has been doubling every two to three days.
In New York, cases have tripled in just a week, with the state setting new daily records for cases for four straight days.
In an address to the nation scheduled for 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 21, President Joe Biden is expected to announce the government's purchase of 500,000,000 at-home rapid COVID tests that will be distributed free to Americans who request them through a website starting in January.
The first US Omicron case was identified on Wednesday, Dec. 1.
The San Francisco Department of Health said the individual was a traveler who returned from South Africa on Monday, Nov. 22, and tested positive for COVID on Monday, Nov. 29. The individual was fully vaccinated and experienced mild symptoms.
Though the surge in cases is coming during one of the busiest travel times of the year, prior to Christmas and the New Year, officials say vaccinations and booster shots and wearing masks indoors in public settings appear effective in preventing severe cases.
“We’ve seen cases of Omicron among those who are both vaccinated and boosted and we believe these cases are milder or asymptomatic because of vaccine protection,” said Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a White House COVID-19 briefing on Friday, Dec. 17.
Preliminary lab studies indicate Omicron may not attack the lungs like other variants.
Omicron "replicates, multiples very well in the upper airway (above the neck), but less well in the lung," Top Infectious Disease Specialist Dr. William Schaffner of Vanderbilt University Medical Center told NBC News.
For info on a study listing the Top 5 symptoms for the Omicron strain, click here.
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