york city were confirmed last night. the lab looks for new variants in as many as 3,000 covid test samples. a week. dr. jon laurent is the director of research and development. >> my recollection of the delta variant is much the same, that we detect aid couple the first week of data that it came out, and then from there, it steadily ramped up. >> reporter: does that concern you that you spotted four already? >> it's definitely concerning. if it takes off the same way dipdelta did, we may be dealing with another surge. >> reporter: at this lab, it takes up to seven days after a person's been tested to confirm which variant they're infected with. here's what we know about the omicron cases detected in the u.s. so far: nearly a third have been fully vaccinated, one had a booster, and everyone's symptoms have been mild or moderate. margaret. >> brennan: and still too early to know if that will be the case for all. thank you very much for that reporting. we learned today that hiring