A day after the Allegheny County health director said the covid-19 omicron variant had been found in the county’s wastewater, lab testing has identified two confirmed cases of the quick-spreading variant, officials said.

One test was collected from a man Dec. 7, and it was confirmed to be the omicron variant Wednesday, health department spokesman Chris Togneri said. The second test, collected from a different man Dec. 13, was confirmed to be the variant Thursday.

Only about 4% of samples collected in Allegheny County are sent on for sequencing that can identify the variant.

Dr. Debra Bogen, the county’s director of health, said Wednesday in her regular covid-19 briefing that it was “just a matter of days” until a lab-confirmed case of omicron appeared in Allegheny County.

The variant spreads easily and quickly, health experts have found, and it has become the dominant variant in the United States. Once it is detected in a community, Bogen said, it does not take long to become the predominant strain.

Bogen said she expects to see a rapid increase in omicron cases in the coming days and weeks.

The department has been collecting wastewater samples several times a week from Alcosan, Pennsylvania American Water and the McCandless Township Water Authority since late October, and covid-19 has been detected in every sample, Togneri said. Omicron began appearing in small amounts Dec. 10, he said.

The samples are collected two or three times weekly, sent by courier to the health department’s Lawrenceville lab and then shipped to a commercial lab for analysis. Togneri said officials hope to be able to do on-site testing by mid-2022.

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