Decline Pushed Out By One Month
Omicron-2 variant paired with premature relaxation of rules delays the end of the pandemic
Now that the BA.2 subvariant (also see remarks below) of Omicron is making inroads, we see the curves projected to decline more slowly. Most importantly, projections for the Anglo-Saxon countries (Britain, the USA and its state Washington) would see incidences decline to a much higher level than those in Western Europe.
The good news: deaths are still projected to decline to near zero by the end of May.
The bad news for immunocompromised people: you will need to protect yourselves even more because in most countries, restrictions will be lifted by the end of March or mid April at the latest.
Whether this opening is premature needs to be seen.
Now is the time, though, to look forward to autumn and its feared re-surge in numbers. The least governments can do is to close the vaccination gap by making vaccinations obligatory.
| Daily Incidence | Daily ICU | Daily Deaths | Daily Pos. Rate | Cumulative Excess Death | Death Projection | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| USA | 033.9 ↓ | 4.3 ↘︎ | 0.669 ↘︎ | 16.3 % ↓ | 16.7 % | ↘︎ |
| WA State | 041.6 ↓ | 2.5 ↘︎ | 0.458 ↘︎ | 11.7 % | ↘︎ | |
| Britain | 069.0 ↘︎ | 0.6 ↘︎ | 0.217 ↘︎ | 05.3 % ↓ | 13.0 % | ↘︎ |
| France | 138.0 ↓ | 4.7 ↘︎ | 0.407 ↘︎ | 26.3 % ↓ | 12.7 % | ↓ |
| Germany | 209.2 ↘︎ | 2.9 ↗︎ | 0.228 ↗︎ | 51.9 % ↗︎ | 07.3 % | ↗︎↘︎ |
| Tunisia | 025.4 ↓ | 2.2 → | 0.522 → | 28.5 % ↓ | 19.0 % | ↘︎ |
As expected this soon after its discovery, we do not know much about the new subvariant of the Omicron variant.
What we do know is that it spreads faster.
There is also indication that triple vaccinated people are still protected against severe disease, and still better so than non-vaccinated.
Also the spreading of the virus seems to be slightly diminished in the triple-vaccinated compared to the unvaccinated.
Plus, death data from Denmark suggest that BA.2 is not associated with higher mortality
(ars technica and CNN)
In other words: The end of the pandemic will be delayed but not disrupted.