Last Updated on December 11, 2021
The first American to be identified as having the Omicron Covid variant gave an interview to CNN while surrounded by Funko Pops and manga.
Peter McGinn, a 30-year-old healthcare analyst from Minneapolis, is the first American to be confirmed as having the new Omicron Covid variant, and was invited onto CNN to talk about what happened. McGinn video-called in to the studio from his home, but instead of seeing either normal room attire, or some professional type of background, viewers were treated to a smorgasbord of man-child decorations.
McGinn proudly displayed on his shelf behind him a vast collection of manga (Japanese graphic novels), not to be confused with their animated video counterpart, anime, and at least 16 “Funko Pops,” small figurines of characters in popular culture and real life, mostly tied to “nerd” interests, such as Marvel, or Star Wars.
Unsurprisingly, McGinn, who was fully vaccinated via the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, and then received a Moderna booster, picked up the Omicron variant when attending a large anime convention in New York City in November.
McGinn spent his time at the convention, which required at least one dose of the vaccine to go to, “[attending] discussion panels, [chatting] with strangers about his anime podcast and, at night, [singing] karaoke with friends.”
The CDC has declared the convention will serve as a case study for the spread of the new variant. “Of the reported 53,000 people who attended that conference, more than 35,000 and counting have been contacted to encourage testing for all attendees,” said Rochelle Walensky, CDC Director.
“Data from this investigation will likely provide some of the earliest looks in this country on the transmissibility of the variant.”
McGinn told CNN that Omicron, while being hyped up by governments across the West as a reason for new mask mandates, vaccine mandates, and vaccine passports, actually felt like nothing more than a mild cold. “I had a mild fatigue, runny nose, and a sore throat, and after a day, those symptoms went away,” McGinn said, adding that if there wasn’t the concern from medical authorities surrounding the anime convention, that he wouldn’t even have bothered to get tested at all.
The anime lover, who in all likelihood did not vote for President Trump in November last year, told CNN that he wants to bravely stand up as a “resource” of information for the Omicron variant.
“The main reason why I wanted to speak out and be a resource was because of the unknown of the new variant,” he said.
