Interesting variant mix at the moment, particularly in Australia. Much like BA.4/5, BQ can't get a foothold in India. Outside of West Africa, where it arose, BQ.1.1 is most prevalent in France, Spain, and Brazil, while Denmark has a nice share of BQ.1.1.20 which is even more as evasive (as much as XBB). I expect similar BQ lineages (with the 144 deletion in the spike) to become commonplace in the months to come.

Weekly update, cases up, deaths down a little

In total 3.73 million new cases were reported last week (up from 3.02 million)
Also another 9,852 more deaths were reported (down from 10,376)

USA reported 332K new cases (up from 300K) and 1,864 more deaths (down from 2,304)
Europe reported 1.44 million new cases (up from 960K) and 3,870 more deaths (down from 4,229)

The continents

Only Africa is opting out of the slow but steady increase in cases

Corners of the world

India, Iran and South Africa continue downwards, the others up.

Unrest in China over zero Covid policy keeps growing, as well as reported cases.

More after effects from the pandemic

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/teens-brains-aged-faster-during-the-first-year-of-the-pandemic-study-says-and-stress-may-be-to-blame-1.6178094

The brains of U.S. teens have physically changed during the COVID-19 pandemic, aging faster than normal, a new study says.

The young study participants also reported more severe symptoms of anxiety, depression and what scientists call internalized problems -- meaning feelings of sadness, low self-esteem and fear and trouble regulating their emotions -- after the first year of the pandemic.

Dozens of studies have found that teens' and adolescents' mental health has suffered during the pandemic. They have been taken out of school, away from their friends and familiar support structures, and had to live with the uncertainty and fear that came with the coronavirus. Many parents lost jobs. Millions of children lost parents and grandparents to COVID-19.

The study, published Thursday in the journal Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science, is one of the first to look at the physical changes in the brain brought by that the stress and anxiety.

....

The brains that had gone through the beginning of the pandemic had growth in the area that can help regulate fear and stress, called the amygdala, and in the hippocampus, the area of the brain that can controls access to memories. Tissues had thinned in the part of the brain that controls executive functioning, the cortex.

A child's brain changes naturally over time, but research has found that these physical changes can speed up when a person goes through significant adversity in childhood.

Studies have shown that people who are exposed to violence, neglect, poverty and family problems early in life have faster brain aging and can have problems with their mental health later on.

Weekly update, slow upward trend continues, yet reported cases are down week over week (corrections or changes in reporting I guess)

In total 3.65 million new cases were reported last week (down from 3.73 million)
Also another 12,090 more deaths were reported (up from 9,852)

USA reported 467K new cases (up from 331K) and 3,072 more deaths (up from 1,964)
Europe reported 1.13 million new cases (down from 1.44 million) and 4,351 more deaths (up from 3,870)

The continents


Corners of the world

Japan leading the chart reaching their Februari peak in reported deaths yet now with 1.5x more reported cases. Fatality rate keeps dropping.

I wonder, do you plan to continue these weekly updates into 2023? I'm curious when you think you'll stop.

Probably end of the year to make a comparison with last year. I doubt any serious waves will happen anymore and those graphs now basically show how reporting and measuring is degrading.

Not that it still isn't a serious issue, but those not badly affected by it seem not to care anymore while those vulnerable to Covid are basically still self isolating :/ I still wear a mask in the supermarket and we hardly go anywhere, pretty much been home since the start :/ I can't watch my wife go through a third round of Covid, however the real risk still comes from school and they have given up as well.

Anyway, 3 more updates to December 31st.

Makes sense. On the UK coronavirus subreddit the person posting weekly stats is stopping by the end of this month too so it seems like the end of 2022 will be the end point for a lot of this stuff. Since it seems at least decently likely the pandemic will get declared over next year the biggest thing left will probably be seeing how China handles its upcoming big exit waves with it being the biggest remaining pocket of humanity to not have had much exposure yet.

Thanks for all the updates every week. I still wear a mask when I go food shopping and other indoor shopping on the once in a blue moon I do that. Not going out that often has been a toll on my mental health. 

Thanks. Our youngest is still struggling with his mental health, the pandemic has had a big impact on him. He was 9 when it started. My wife and I are doing much better now. The pandemic has only strengthened our relationship and there are certain benefits to not going anywhere :) We do really miss going out to a good restaurant for dinner, it's just not worth the risk.

Oh another side effect from the pandemic

A security breach linked to Ontario’s COVID-19 vaccine portal exposed the personal information of approximately 360,000 people in the province.

Those who are impacted will start receiving email notices on Friday if their personal information was part of this breach.

“In over 95 per cent of cases, only names and/or phone numbers were impacted,” Ontario’s Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery said in a statement on Friday.

Expect more scam emails :/

I can only imagine what your youngest is dealing with. I already worked from home working for VGChartz, so my life was already rather isolated. I don't have a lot of local friends and my girlfriend lives in the UK, while I am in the US. Neither of us feel the safest flying while the pandemic is still going on, plus we both already hated flying. 

Seems like we're through the BQ peak over here.

Meanwhile, China just did a 180° in their policies. Though we can't rely on their numbers, except to see signs of a massive wave over there during this winter. Since they don't have much immunity, at least, ~ 1B people being infected won't generate further escape variants since there's no pressure for them to evolve.

As for what the virus does next, it'll depend on the nature of immunity from BQ/XBB infections. There are a couple of sites that can be targeted by antibodies that the virus REALLY don't want to mess with, so if they are the main antigenic sites, evolution could slow dramatically, and we should fall into an annual pattern or close to it.