In the U.S. the decline in new cases continues to accelerate. New cases fell 25 percent in the past seven days, to just under 170 new COVID-19 cases per 100K population per day.
Fewer than ten states saw increases over the past week. It’s hard to say, exactly, as several states dumped large numbers of old cases into their data. I have corrected that were I can (LA, WA), but in other cases (e.g., MN) the state is so vague about what they did that no correction is possible.
Arguably, the only state that is still appears to be experiencing rapid new case growth this point is Montana.
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 1/29/2022, 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
Here are the states sorted by percent change in new COVID-19 cases over the past seven days.
What’s happening in the U.K.?
Source: Johns Hopkins data via Google search
At this point, it’s fair to say that the Omicron recovery in the U.K. has stalled. That’s markedly different from all other countries that appear to have peaked, so far. (Or, at least, all that I’ve come across).
There are a few possibly interesting things to say about that.
First, this, the son-of-Omicron variant (BA.2) is more infectious than Omicron:
Source: The Independent, 1/29/2022
U.K. authorities do not blame the U.K. plateau on this new COVID-19 variant. It’s still too rare in the U.K. to have much of an impact. And they don’t do much to quantify it, but they say it has a “substantial” growth advantage over Omicron. Based on reporting from Denmark, CNBC says that son-of-Omicron (BA.2) is 1.5x as infectious as Omicron.
Why Denmark? Currently 45% of new cases in Denmark are the BA.2 variant. That’s up from just 20% of cases two weeks ago. That’s the same Denmark that has not yet reached a peak in this wave:
Just to keep that in perspective, the current new-case rate in Denmark (45,000 new cases per day, population 5.8M) works out to 775 cases per 100K population per day. Or roughly three times the U.S. peak.
And, sure, of course we have son-of-Omicron (BA.2) in the U.S. (See CNBC reporting above). Early reports suggested that it didn’t appear to be beating Omicron. But U.S. genetic sequencing of these variants seems to run weeks to nearly a month behind real time. As of today, BA.2 does not even have a separate listing on the CDC COVID variant tracking pages.
I suppose it’s worth recalling that Alpha was about 1.6 times as infectious as the native strain, and Delta was about 1.6 times as infectious as Alpha. To me, that strongly suggests that BA.2, at 1.5 times as infectious as Omicron, is likely to become the dominant strain. If I’ve done the calculation right, the R-nought would be 22.5. That’s the highest I’ve ever seen mentioned for any disease.
For what it’s worth, as I read it, the early buzz on BA.2 is that it has even lower case severity that Omicron. It has been nicknamed “stealth Omicron” due to the high prevalence of asymptomatic cases. I have yet to see that confirmed with any hard data such as hospitalization or death rates.
As such, you can probably view it as another step on the direction that Omicron took us. More infectious, lots of reinfections of prior cases, but lower case severity. Omicron-squared.
Finally, despite the lack of decline in new cases counts, and the emergence of this more-infectious strain, the U.K. just lifted their most important national COVID-19 hygiene measures. Masks are no longer required for indoor spaces, and no proof of vaccination is needed to attend large public events such as sporting events. This has been described as a policy of “just live with it”.
