Looks like were getting closer to a peak in daily new COVID-19 cases.
The rate of increase is slowing, and that’s occurring across all regions. Cases only (only?) increased 77% in the past seven days, to 187 new cases per 100K per day. Just two days ago, we were still seeing new cases double every week.
DC appears to have peaked, but no other states have so far.
Data source for this and other graphs of new case counts: Calculated from The New York Times. (2021). Coronavirus (Covid-19) Data in the United States. Retrieved 1/7/2022, from https://github.com/nytimes/covid-19-data.” The NY Times U.S. tracking page may be found at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html.
On the bright side, there’s typically a two-week lag between new COVID-19 cases and new COVID-19 deaths. We’re now almost three weeks into our Omicron wave (U.S. cases started to increases rapidly beginning 12/17/2021), and, so far, there’s been no uptick in COVID-19 deaths at all.
Below, you can look back at the far-more-virulent Delta wave and see that almost-perfect two-week lag. You can see the ramp-up in deaths followed the ramp-up in cases. And then you can see that’s not happening with Omicron. If there had been, you surely would have read about it by now.
Source: CDC COVID data tracker. Notes are mine.
That was the story in South Africa — a lot of cases, few deaths. And that’s also how it’s unfolding in Great Britain.
The United Kingdom Omicron wave in three charts, via Google Search.
Huge volume of new cases. Three weeks from the upward kink in the curve (December 14 2021) to the apparent top of the curve (January 4 2022).
Big increase in hospitalizations, but not such a big increase in ICU use.
Slight uptick in deaths:
Now here’s the crazy thing. If the U.S. a) follows the United Kingdom’s time table for the wave, and b) I correctly dated the 1/14 (U.K.) and 1/17 (U.S.) starts of the Omicron waves, then …. tomorrow should be the peak of the U.S. Omicron wave. That is, the day when that seven-day moving average of new cases finally levels off.
Well, we know Omicron can move fast. It was upon us before we were really ready for it. And it’ll be receding before we can get ourselves out of crisis mindset.
What am I going to do with my time once I can no longer blog about COVID?
