Some health experts are sure that the South African Omicron variant is already in the United States, it just has not been detected yet.
Dr Scott Gottlieb, former head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) told CBS News' Face the Nation that the variant likely found its way into the U.S. before flights from seven south African nations were paused.
The restriction was instituted on Monday by President Biden in an effort to prevent the potentially vaccine evasive, highly infectious, variant from finding its way stateside.
Omicron was first detected in South Africa last week, and has since been found in more than a dozen countries, including the UK and Canada.
Dr Scott Gottlieb (pictured) believes that the Omicron COVID-19 variant is already in the U.S. and it just has not been sequenced yet
Gottlieb says that since so many people are flying into America and then testing positive for the virus, it is extremely likely at least one person brought the variant with them. Another expert, Dr Chris Thompson of Loyola Chicago, agrees. The U.S. halted travel from seven African nations starting Monday. Pictured: Travelers at Los Angeles International Airport on November 28
'It's almost definitely here already, just looking at the number of cases coming off planes this weekend. It's almost a certainty that there have been cases that have gotten into the United States,' Gottlieb said Sunday.
He is not panicking, though.
'We're in a much better place now than we were a year ago when [Beta] first arrived, or even when Delta first arrived,' the former FDA chief, who now serves of the board of Pfizer, said.
In order to detect variants of the virus, a small portion of positive PCR tests are sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for genetic sequencing.
The process of sequencing effectively uses a sample to make an accurate estimation of what variants are being circulated in the country.
Currently, according to the CDC, almost every single new case in the U.S. is of the Delta variant, which has been a trend since the summer.
But not all cases are sequenced, though, meaning that if there are only a few cases here and there of a certain strain it is likely they
