Omicron may be headed for a rapid drop in US and Britain

[Sherman A1]

Scientists are seeing signals that COVID-19's alarming omicron wave may have peaked in Britain and is about to do the same in the U.S., at which point cases may start dropping off dramatically.

The reason: The variant has proved so wildly contagious that it may already be running out of people to infect, just a month and a half after it was first detected in South Africa.

"It's going to come down as fast as it went up," said Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle.

At the same time, experts warn that much is still uncertain about how the next phase of the pandemic might unfold. The plateauing or ebbing in the two countries is not happening everywhere at the same time or at the same pace. And weeks or months of misery still lie ahead for patients and overwhelmed hospitals even if the drop-off comes to pass.

https://krcgtv.com/news/nation-world/omicron-may-be-headed-for-a-rapid-drop-in-us-and-britain

Personally I think we have a long way to go before we are out of the woods.

[milestogo]

1. I'll ask my psychic to confirm this.

[MontanaMama]

2. Omicron has miles to go before she sleeps.

And, I can tell you from experience…she ain’t playing. Lots and lots of unvaccinated morans need infecting.

[choie]

3. All of these prognosis are ridiculous

I just read in the Times that soon half of Europe will be infected. It's too soon to come out with these predictions.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. But the point of that was that it's crossing Europe from west to east - the UK is leading edge

"Today the Omicron variant represents a new west-to-east tidal wave, sweeping across the region on top of the Delta surge that all countries were managing until late 2021," Dr Kluge told a news conference.

He quoted the Seattle-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation as forecasting that "more than 50 percent of the population in the region will be infected with Omicron in the next six to eight weeks".

He said European and Central Asian countries remained under "intense pressure" as the virus spread from western countries into the Balkans.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-59948920

The projection for the whole of Europe:
https://covid19.healthdata.org/european-region?view=infections-testing&tab=trend&test=infections
For the UK (note this reckons the UK peak has already been reached):
https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-kingdom?view=infections-testing&tab=trend&test=infections

[Quixote1818]

14. Thanks for the links. Great stuff. nt

[luv2fly]

10. Yeah but what else are all the "experts" going to do?

Grifting comes in all forms.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

15. Scientists are not grifters...grifters are the ones with no science knowledge fleecing similar folks.

[luv2fly]

16. If only that were true... n/t

[Torchlight]

17. You're being grifted by science?

[Alexander Of Assyria]

18. Yes, apparently. 😂

[Quixote1818]

13. Exponential growth is pretty easy to calculate if you know how many people each person infects.

Omicron has an incredible growth rate with each person infecting 5 more people, 90% of whom are asymptomatic. So it only needs to cycle around 11 to 12 times to hit the 140 million they expect to get infected. Early February is probably pretty spot on for it to literally come crashing down. As the CDC says, omicron is an icepick not a wave: https://www.audacy.com/kywnewsradio/news/national/cdc-director-omicron-surge-ice-pick-not-wave

As you said, if half of Europe is infected then that half will infect the other half in just a few days. That's how crazy exponential growth is.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

19. Science is soooo stupid to do projections...based on science. Don't really understand? Np.

There are experts are for everything, real experts, not the ones on Twitter.

I choose experts over Twitter, every time, much as one chooses a real doctor for your cancer treatment….because of the expertise.

[Poiuyt]

4. Well, it sure ain't dropping in my area

The number of cases are still shooting upward at an alarming rate

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. That's reasonable for the UK; it looks like the new cases peak for 7 day average was on Jan 5th

https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=new_cases_per_million&Metric=Confirmed+cases&Interval=7-day+rolling+average&Relative+to+Population=true&Color+by+test+positivity=false&country=USA~GBR

For the US - from that graph, it looks like another 5 or 6 days before the peak at best, if it follow the same trajectory. But you'd expect the cases to be spread out more, in a larger country, just by the law of averages (and that's basically been the case so far). And that may well mean the overall US numbers have a longer time climbing before their peak.

(London, which led the overall UK figures in cases, peaked about 20th Dec, though that's harder to judge because of the holidays just after that: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases?areaType=region%26areaName=London#card-cases_by_specimen_date

Numbers in hospital in the UK are still rising, but there's just about a sign that the rate of increase is tailing off: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare#card-patients_in_hospital

Deaths in the UK aren't so smooth, but they are still rising: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths#card-deaths_within_28_days_of_positive_test_by_date_reported

[onecaliberal]

6. We closed 13 classrooms in my district today.

It’s not slowing down, it’s just getting started.

[maxsolomon]

8. Hopefully that's how it will work. Burn through the population and peter out.

Leaving fewer dead than previous variants.

It's going to take a while though. In to February at least.

[Takket]

9. it won't drop as fast here as in SA

because we are so much larger of a country. even as fast as omicron spreads it just takes time to work through ever community. i think cases will start to drop in two weeks or so and decline over the following month.

[iemanja]

11. It's hit two people in my family

and I seriously doubt that it is running out of people to infect.

[Quixote1818]

12. Evidently 90% of those who get Omicron are asymptomatic. They expect 140 million cases.

So maybe 14 million will feel sick. If one person spreads it to 5 people as they say, it should be dropping like a rock by early Feb. That is incredible exponential growth!!!!!! Basically 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 = 244140625

It only needs to cycle around 12 times to get well passed 140 million cases.



https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2021/12/22/covid-omicron-variant-ihme-models-predict-140-m-new-infections-winter/8967421002/