Hospitalization and deaths don't lag that far behind, max 2 weeks.

Comparing the last Delta wave in South Africa with the new Omicron wave

Deaths in black (different scale)

Deaths are not going up in South Africa since the Omicron wave started 3 weeks ago.
It's very contagious (South Africa is 25% fully vaccinated) but doesn't seem deadly.

Yet if it will prompt more measures to finally put an end to the delta wave, double bonus. A weaker variant to add to immunity, replace Delta and people finally being more careful to get the numbers down.

I could be wrong, but I'm not feeling particularly worried about this new variant. We'll find out soon enough as it seems we're at the leading edge (After South Africa that is)
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/ontario-at-leading-edge-of-omicron-er-doctor-1.5710982

New modelling released Thursday by Ontario's Science Advisory Table suggests the Omicron variant is set to become the dominant strain in the province this week, with intensive care unit (ICU) occupancy potentially reaching "unsustainable levels" in early January without "prompt intervention."

The big difference with South Africa is of course the age factor, median age in Canada is 41.1, only 27.6 in South Africa. We started with boosters for 60+ a couple weeks ago, now everyone is eligible for a booster.

And of course hospitalizations aren't the same as deaths

A recent study of cases in South Africa found protection against severe illness with the vaccine was 70 per cent, compared to 93 per cent with the Delta variant. Children also appeared to have a 20 per cent higher risk of hospital admissions with complications, although cases have been few and the data is considered very early.

However

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/south-africa-hospitalization-rate-falls-91-in-omicron-wave-1.1697267

Only 1.7% of identified Covid-19 infections in the second week of the fourth wave of infections were admitted to the hospital, compared with 19% in the same week of the third wave, which was driven by delta, South African Health Minister Joe Phaahla said.

Omicron cases can be 11x as high to reach the same number of hospitalizations. It's a new race with much faster exponential growth.

There are some hints already as to which biological mechanisms might be in play with the apparent lower severity of the Omicron variant. The first obvious suspect is of course that it just seems less virulent because it infects people that have been vaccinated/infected by Covid already. But there's a 30% or so chunk of the South African population that still hasn't been either vaccinated or infected.

But recently it was found out that a) Omicron reproduces ten times more slowly than the original virus in lung cells, and b) it is almost incapable of generating syncitia - blobs of fused cells that viruses uses to better replicate and evade innate immune responses, a good correlate with severity in respiratory illnesses.

Edit - of course, as I said in a previous post, since this thing doesn't immunologically overlap much with Delta, you'll have both variants stacked one on top of the other in the middle of the Northern Hemisphere winter, when immunity is at its lowest. I'd recommend boosters to the elderly ASAP.

The best-case scenario would be an Omicron infection conferring at least temporary immunity to Delta. One-month immunity could be enough to break D's transmission chains when O is widespread enough.

Full update tomorrow, yet looking at the numbers right now, it's Canada, UK, Denmark and Australia with sudden explosive growth. Possible Omicron outbreaks.

Spain might have one as well on top of the already exponential delta growth as the last one to join the delta wave. Not good with the risk of co-infection. That doesn't mean you get more severely ill, but it does open the door for recombination to potentially create a more infectious delta like variant.

While recombination is theoretically possible, it must be said that Omicron and Delta are still almost 100% alike except for their spike protein, and both variants' success depends on a series of synergistic interactions (epistasis).

Even if the split happened exactly in the middle of the receptor-binding motif, to make it as antigenically relevant as possible, you'd likely end up with a recombinant virus with less immune escape but carrying a series of deleterious mutations to itself compared to the original strains.

Weekly update. Just as the Delta wave is at its peak in Western Europe, Omicron starts to spread.

In total 4.55 million new cases were reported last week (up from 4.25 million) to a total of 273,961,425
Also another 49,094 more deaths were reported (down from 53,654) to a total of 5,360,822

Europe's Delta wave peaked yet Omicron is already driving cases up again. The USA continues it slow march up.

The continents

Europe reported 2.63 million new cases (up from 2.49 million) and 26,187 more deaths (slightly down from 26,981)
North America reported 977K new cases (up from 887K) and 11,035 more deaths (11,163 last week)
Asia reported 554K new cases (slightly down from 568K) and 8,549 more deaths (down from 11,685)
Africa reported 263K new cases (up from 169K) and 955 more deaths (slightly down from 1,076)
South America reported 107K new cases (down from 126K) and 2,297 more deaths (down from 2,672)
Oceania reported 18.1K new cases (up from 12.1K) and 71 deaths (77 last week)

Corners of the world

USA reported 905K new cases (up from 827K) and 9,393 more deaths (slightly up from 9,210)
South Africa reported 164K new cases (up from 108K) and 217 deaths (140 last week)
India reported 49.9K new cases (down from 58.7K) and 1,769 more deaths (down from 4,874) (was ~2,000 extra added last week)
South Korea reported 47.9K new cases (up from 41.1K) and 461 deaths (391 last week)
Canada reported 39.6K new cases (up from 25.0K) and 135 deaths (140 last week)
Brazil reported 24.2K new cases (down from 55.4K) and 914 deaths (down from 1,279)
Japan reported 18.4K new cases (18.4K last week) and 7 deaths (8 last week)
Australia reported 17.1K new cases (up from 10.8K) and 50 deaths (52 last week)
Iran reported 16.8K new cases (down from 21.6K) and 380 deaths (537 last week)

South Africa is peaking, Canada and Australia are shooting up.

Europe in detail

UK, Spain and Denmark seem to be the first to get hit with Omicron. UK is closing in on 100K new cases a day.

Global vaccination rate is now 46.67% (+1.32%)

South America 61.71% (+1.17%)
Europe 59.91% (+0.63%)
Oceania 57.19% (+0.75%)
North America 56.29% (+0.57%)
Asia 53.07% (+1.80%)
Africa 8.38% (+0.45%)

Locally reported cases in Ontario have doubled in the last 3 days while Delta was already making a comeback. Omicron spreads very fast.

It's pretty much all over the world already, not much point in travel restrictions anymore, too late as usual
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/who-omicron-detected-in-89-countries-cases-doubling-fast-1.5712757

The Omicron variant of the coronavirus has been detected in 89 countries, and COVID-19 cases involving the variant are doubling every 1.5 to 3 days in places with community transmission and not just infections acquired abroad, the World Health Organization said Saturday.

I wonder how Omicron outcomes will differ in the three kinds of places we have today:

a) Places currently struggling against Delta (Northern US, Europe)
b) Places that had a Delta wave but are past it (Southern US, Africa, South Asia)
c) Places that had no Delta wave at all (most of South America)

Because their immunological status can't be directly compared and that could be a huge influence depending on how much Omicron's mildness hangs on previous immunity.

On the other hand we have data like this from France, a country that was struggling with Delta, showing ICU exit rate for Covid after a week has virtually reached 100% all of a sudden:

Preliminary data suggests Omicron symptons are different.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/omicron-symptoms-may-differ-from-those-of-other-covid-19-variants-1.5712918

The ZOE COVID Symptoms Study, which tracks symptoms recorded from participants using a smartphone app, reported on Thursday that the top five symptoms for Omicron were runny nose, headache, fatigue, sneezing and sore throat.

The data was collected between Dec. 3 to 10 in London, where Omicron has become the dominant strain, based on over 52,000 COVID-19 tests.

Unlike with other strains of the virus, symptoms of fever, cough and loss of smell were less common. The ZOE analysis found that only 50 per cent of those with Omicron had these three "classic symptoms."

Loss of appetite as well as brain fog were also commonly reported symptoms.

These findings are also consistent with early data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which studied 43 Omicron cases from Dec. 1 to 8. The CDC found that cough, fatigue, and congestion or runny nose were the most common symptoms among the cohort, three-quarters of whom were fully vaccinated.

Similarly, Dr. Angelique Coetzee, who is the chair of the South African Medical Association and the first doctor to detect the Omicron variant, has said that fatigue was among the most common symptoms she's observed, along with headaches, body aches and "scratchy" throat.

So Now I wonder again if we already have it from the school. My oldest got a severe cold (headache, cough, runny nose, tired), prompting him to stay home from school. And now my wife has severe soar throat and very tired.

"Hopefully people now recognise the cold-like symptoms which appear to be the predominant feature of Omicron. These are the changes that will slow the spread of the virus," ZOE lead scientist Tim Spector said in a news release on Thursday.

The school was already closed and we were already isolating again for the Delta wave, just sit it out I guess. Too late for a booster shot now.

The IHME just released their Omicron projections, based on British, Danish, Norwegian, and South African data.

https://www.healthdata.org/covid/video/insights-ihmes-latest-covid-19-model-run

Some highlights include:

* 3 billion estimated Omicron infections in the next 2 - 3 months (doubling the number of infected so far)

* 90% of infections are asymptomatic

* 90% lower infection hospitalization rate (do not mistake for the case hospitalization rate)

* 97% lower infection fatality rate

This will translate to a much lower burden in healthcare but, since the number of infections is so great, some countries that have escaped relatively unscathed will see hospital surges like they haven't yet or match their worst.

The first place to peak outside of Africa will likely be New York City, though London possibly isn't far behind. According to another model, Covidestim, the infection numbers in NYC are absurd right now. Not even the first surge in March 2020 can compare.

Omicron has got firm hold in Canada. Yesterday we had over 21,000 cases, 2.88x as much as last Thursday. Already doubled our previous highest peak in cases.

Estimates actually already put Ontario alone at 20K cases since testing is 5 days behind, people have to way almost a week to get tested. My neighbor can't go back to work until after he gets a negative test, but can't get a test until Januari 4th. We're going to have to prioritize again who gets tested as there isn't enough testing capacity available. Then you have all the asymptomatic cases on top.

We're already close to 2 million detected cases since the pandemic started, 5.3% of the population. After Omicron is done, plus all the asymptomatic undetected cases on top, it seems likely to have reached half the population by the end of Januari. Between vaccination and Omicron, there won't be many people left without some anti bodies.

My wife tested negative on the rapid test, seems she has something worse.. or the test didn't work. Still sick as a dog. Christmas dinner cancelled. I'm not feeling well either, should have pulled the kids from school a week earlier doh. (They're mostly recovered). More and more cases are getting known from the school, and probably still many unkown. The health unit has given up on contact tracing and it's now the job of those that test positive to alert people they have been in contact with. Not that it matters when it takes a week to get results.

Weekly update. Omicron is starting to overtake the Delta wave.

In total 5.37 million more cases were reported last week (up from 4.55 million) to a total of 279,329,540
Also another 48,291 more deaths were reported (slightly down from 49,094) to a total of 5,409,113

Reported deaths are slightly down as the Delta wave has peaked. Cases are up with Omicron taking hold.

The continents

Europe reported 2.89 million new cases (up from 2.63 million) and 23,704 more deaths (down from 26,187)
North America reported 1.50 million new cases (up from 977K) and 12,543 more deaths (up from 11,035)
Asia reported 502K new cases (down from 554K) and 8,515 more deaths (8,549 last week)
Africa reported 286K new cases (up from 263K) and 1,376 more deaths (up from 955)
South America reported 144K new cases (up from 107K) and 2,105 more deaths (slightly down from 2,297)
Oceania reported 40.7K new cases (up from 18.1K) and 48 deaths (71 last week)

Corners of the world

USA reported 1.38 million new cases (up from 905K) and 10,952 more deaths (up from 9,393)
South Africa reported 117K new cases (down from 164K) and 446 deaths (217 last week)
Canada reported 90.2K new cases (up from 39.6K) and 107 deaths (135 last week)
South Korea reported 44.7K new cases (down from 47.9k) and 480 deaths (461 last week)
India reported 43.8K new cases (down from 49.9K) and 2,321 more deaths (up from 1,769)
Australia reported 39.8K new cases (up from 17.1K) and 48 deaths (50 last week)
Brazil reported 21.7K new cases (up from 24.2K) and 782 deaths (914 last week)
Iran reported 14.1K new cases (down from 16.8K) and 314 deaths (380 last week)
Japan reported 1,504 new cases (up from 991) and 8 deaths (7 last week)

Europe in detail

UK is the first to breach the avg 100K cases a day, France, Spain, Italy and Ireland are now also in the middle of an Omicron surge.

Global vaccination rate is now 48.09% (+1.42%)

South America 63.00% (+1.29%)
Europe 60.57% (+0.66%)
Oceania 57.86% (+0.67%)
North America 57.67% (+1.38%) boost from having started vaccinating under 5-11 year olds
Asia 54.93% (+1.86%)
Africa 8.81% (+0.43%)

Yesterday added 9,571 cases to Ontario, previous record was 4,812 new cases in a single day. And officials warn these records are still underestimations. Christmas flights are cancelled due to staff shortages, Nunavut is under full lock down again, here a lot of restrictions are back but we're still allowed to celebrate the holidays. Anti bodies for everyone this Christmas...

Merry christmas from a foggy, rainy Ontario.
We had some snow which is melting atm. It stayed just long enough to build a giant snow fort in the park :)