The fully vaccinated Minnesota man who became one of the country's first Omicron cases said he was 'taken aback' but feeling well after learning he was infected with the feared variant after coming back from a packed NYC Anime convention in November.
Peter McGinn, 30, had met up with 35 people from a friends group - 15 of whom have since tested positive - to attend the convention at the Javits Center, which drew about 53,000 people from November 20-22.
It is unknown how many in that fully vaccinated group have the Omicron variant. The group had also all gone out to a bar following the event.
McGinn, a health care analyst from Minneapolis, was fully vaccinated and received his first booster shot during the first week of November.
'I felt perfectly safe with the people that I was with, and so it never really crossed my mind to think that I had COVID,' McGinn told ABC. 'I was just a little taken aback.'
Minneapolis health care analyst Peter McGinn, 30, has spoken about how surprised he was after he became one of the first people in the country to contract the Omicron variant despite being fully vaccinated and receiving the booster shot
McGinn had tested positive for the variant after he traveling to New York in late November for the NYC Anime convention at Javits Center
McGinn had also stated he was surprised to discover he had contracted not only the virus, but the new variant after he had taken a series of precautions.
'When I first heard it, I thought it was a supervillain,' McGinn told the Star Tribune.
'It seems like a villain name to me and so I guess that kind of matches this since it's a virus.'
McGinn had flown into LaGuardia Airport in New York on November 18 and stayed with two friends in an Airbnb in Hell's Kitchen. He attended the convention on November 20.
After he returned home from the convention on November 22, a friend had confirmed a positive result for COVID, which prompted McGinn to get a test.
McGinn then discovered he tested positive for the virus after he took an at-home test and then later went to a PCR testing site for further confirmation.
After coming home from the convention, McGinn tested positive for COVID before receiving the news that he had contracted the variant almost a week later
'That threw me for a loop because I really wasn’t feeling sick,' he said.
He said he had suffered from a slightly runny nose and a small cough, which he attributed to exhaustion as well as his asthma.
He also thought his symptoms may be related to a 15-mile trek he took in the city with his friends.
Almost a week after receiving the positive result, he was called in for routine contact tracing.
McGinn was told on December 1 that he was exposed to the new variant after Minnesota health officials had confirmed his samples were a part of Omicron.
Despite the diagnosis, McGinn said he didn't really feel sick and recovered rather quickly.
'A lot of it was just like, 'See, vaccines don't work.' But in my opinion, they
