Multiple cases of omicron virus variant detected in New York City

Multiple cases of the Omicron coronavirus variant have been detected in New York, health officials said Thursday, including a man who attended an anime convention in Manhattan in late November and tested positive for the variant when he returned home to Minnesota.

In addition to the conventioneer who was vaccinated for COVID-19, government officials said tests showed five other people recently infected with the virus had the variant. They included a person in the city's Long Island suburbs who had recently traveled to South Africa, residents of Brooklyn and Queens and another case possibly linked to travel. At least one person had received a dose of a COVID-19 vaccine but officials did not have details about the vaccination status of the four other cases.

Gov. Kathy Hochul at said at a news conference with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio that officials were still gathering details on the cases but there was "no cause for alarm."

"We just want to make sure that the public is aware of information when we receive it," she said.

De Blasio said the geographic spread of the positive tests suggested the variant was undergoing "community spread" in the city, and wasn't linked to any one event.