Thanks for the Viral RNA suggestion, that was interesting. Doesn't seem like you can get charts like this for too many areas but thankfully NC is one of them so I found some interesting graphs for my area. Wish I could see a graph like this for NYC but didn't have any luck finding it. 

So this is interesting. Javid responses have a discrediting tone. When are we going to have a more nuanced approach to who and who doesn't need to boosted? is that too much to ask for? 

An international travel hub and four touristic destinations were the first countries to peak in Europe, with varying degrees of success at tracking infections:

The same thing happened in the Americas, where the ABC islands and the Northeast US peaked first. Assuming a Gompertz curve, expect the decline to be somewhat slower than the rise but consistent throughout the next 4-6 weeks.

^ Kinda proves how tourism keeps fueling the pandemic... Essential travel...

Weekly update, Omicron has taken hold of the rest of the world, how high will it go :/ It does look like the UK is on the way down, not just capped by testing. South Africa peaked in reported deaths, those are going down now as well. Many countries are still just starting though.


In total 20.5 million new cases were reported last week (up from 15.2 million) to a total of 324,184,080
Also another 50,241 more deaths were reported (up from 44,488) to a total of 5,547,401

Europe is climbing more slowly, part test constrained plus a couple countries are past the peak, deaths are now starting to rise.
USA is also climbing a bit slower, deaths are going up.

The continents

Europe reported 7.98 million new cases (up from 6.84 million) and 20,914 more deaths (slightly up from 20,241)
North America reported 6.41 million new cases (up from 5.28 million) and 15,765 more deaths (up from 12,715)
Asia reported 3.15 million new cases (up from 1.46 million) and 7,687 more deaths (slightly up from 7,212)
South America reported 1.91 million new cases (up from 930K) and 3,275 more deaths (up from 2,100)
Oceania reported 779K new cases (up from 371K) and 237 deaths (87 last week)
Africa reported 292K new cases (down from 324K) and 2,318 more deaths (slightly down from 2,403)

Corners of the world

USA reported 5.75 million new cases (up from 4.77 million) and 13,740 more deaths (up from 11,441)
India reported 1.48 million new cases (up from 508K) and 2,317 more deaths (slightly up from 2,228)
Australia reported 775K new cases (up from 366K) and 259 deaths (80 last week)
Brazil reported 477K new cases (up from 163K) and 969 deaths (769 last week)
Canada reported 236K new cases (down from 299K) and 649 deaths (349 last week)
Japan reported 65.4K new cases (up from 10.2K) and 16 deaths (5 last week)
South Africa reported 38.2K new cases (down from 55.5K) and 865 deaths (down from 1,107)
South Korea reported 26.1K new cases (slightly down from 26.7K) and 327 deaths (369 last week)
Iran reported 13.1K new cases (up from 9,823) and 205 deaths (215 last week)

Australia practically doubled its total reported cases compared to last week from 762K to 1,537K total cases

Europe in detail

The UK appears to have peeked, Italy might be at its peek, the rest still look to be climbing or just starting to climb

Global vaccination rate passed the 50%! Now 50.88% (+1.11%)

South America 65.10% (+0.92%)
Europe 62.27% (+0.67%)
Oceania 58.82% (+0.37%)
Asia 58.68% (+1.51%)
North America 58.67% (+0.38%)
Africa 9.97% (+0.35%)

Locally (Ontario) hospitalizations due to Covid are still going up, 53% of admittance is for Covid currently, 78% of admittance to the ICU.
The rate of new admissions looks to be slowing down, the peek is in sight.

https://www.oha.com/Bulletins/COVID-19%20Capacity%20Slides%2014%20Jan%202022.pdf

After two years, I've got COVID. I guess it was inevitable, but thankfully my mother doesn't have it (she has arthritis, which compromises a lot her immune system) or at least she is experiencing very mild symptoms. She will have to make another test on herself in a few days, though.

Now I'm in full isolation, with some fever, body pain and tough coughing, unable to work for the next week, maybe more. This really sucks.

The latest IHME projection brought the worldwide peak forward again (to January 10th!) at 132 million daily infections. The mega-peaks here in Brazil and in India seem rather high, perhaps implausibly so... or are they?

There are reports health centers in India are absolutely swamped with respiratory illness. And, here in Brazil, literally 30% of the entire healthcare personnel in some states are off duty with Covid *right now*. Hundreds of thousands of cases still weren't counted because there are not enough people to crunch the numbers, and tests are almost running out in most places.

It would also be consistent with dropping wastewater viral RNA levels in most of the US, even places like California that haven't peaked yet.

Some Canadian humor to lighten up the thread:

BREAKING NEWS: Ahead of massive winter storm, Ontario empowering families to self-gauge how much snow is falling, will not be measuring total snowfall or reporting driving conitions, road closures or accidents.

If you open your door and cannot see the sidewalk or the road, assume you have snow and isolate for 10 or 5, or maybe 14 days.

Plows will be deployed once 30% of cars are in the ditch.
(we don't get notified of Covid in the classroom anymore until 30% of the class has it...)

Just let kids drive, studies show that the majority of accidents occur when adults drive. Therefore children drivers are not contributing to the spread of car accidents.

Two free weather reports per family.

In other news, the government refuses to admit that snow is airborne.

Salt, plows and sanders are being withheld. Ontario is empowering us to use the table salt in our homes. If we run out limited packets of salt will be distributed at selected LCBO's. (liquor stores)

If you would like a ruler to measure your own snow, you can line up at the LCBO.

Looking at developed countries it would seem that fairly good testing, say, picking up 33% - 50% of infections as I assume to be the case for Denmark or France, would land you at an infection fatality rate of 0.025% for Omicron in developed countries (including average levels of vaccination, natural immunity, and intrinsic mildness into the equation, so YMMV).

In theory this would mean Canada reported as low as 1 in 10 infections lately. The US about 1 in 6 - 8, UK 1 in 4 - 6. Iceland fared the best of all at 1 in 2 as it has done throughout the pandemic.

This would actually be rather mild even compared to annual influenza. The problem, of course, is that annual influenza infects 10-20% of the population during the year, not 50-60% in 8 weeks...

Me myself have a mild cold at the moment so who knows. Thing is, healthcare centers are so filled with people that doctors are basically telling you to stay at home and not even get tested unless your oxygenation is low or you have comorbidities.

Good thing we kept the kids home this week. Our youngest's teacher now has Covid :(
I guess they're staying home another week. Clearly it's spreading in school. (And no replacement teacher either)

Clrealy it's spreading in schools indeed.. Just did a home test for my 9-year-old because he had fever (usually doesn't like myself) and he said his legs are aching and tired. And got positive result.

Got to say this is a bit scary even though my wife and I are vaccinated and virus shouldn't be that bad for children.