Omicron Overtakes Delta as Dominant Strain for New COVID Infection

Pharma Live ^ | Dec 21, 2021 | Kate Goodwin

[BeauBo]

“The mask is to the coronavirus what underwear is to a fart.”

Good one.

I think the masks are more for theatrical effect, then they are for medical effect.

[freeandfreezing]

This is kind of amusing. You can't make a single technical argument, or cite any data, but you spout insults non-stop. No need to respond, I'll just provide some data that everyone can consider.

Lets start off with reporting of COVID variants by date. You can look at that data here. Notice that new variants become prevalent when other variants are already on the downslope in terms of number of samples. The downslope in Delta samples in recent days may be partially an artifact of delays in reporting. If so that suggests actual data of percentages of variants may not be accurate in the short term.

With that in mind, lets go look at the CDC data. The CDC data shows what appears to be a rapid rise in Omicron variant cases. You can see that here .

But that graph includes the CDC "nowcast" model. It isn't the data, just a CDC forecast of what they think the data is. If you turn off the nowcast feature by selecting "Nowcast Off" you can see just the actual data, instead of the model output. The data is still 99.3% delta.

So for the science believers, you have a 99.3% chance of being exposed to the delta COVID-19 variant at this point in time (or actually as of 12/18/21 which is the most recent data published by the CDC.)

Based on that data, the effect of the Omicron variant on what is happening right now is limited. In the future other variants may become more common, as is to be expected. In particular, as the number of Delta exposed (or having equivalent resistance by vaccination) individuals reaches the herd immunity threshold for Delta it will no longer be able to propagate itself.

At that point another variant that is able to propagate through the population will become prevalent. Omicron may well have that role in places where Delta has run its course. They may also overlap for a while, similar to the multiple variants shown in the COVID variant chart in spring of 2021.

If you look at the patterns of cases reported in New Hampshire, or other states with high transmission rates presently you see that the curves match the exponential shapes of the spread of a virus where the outbreak began months ago. That's Delta in action, not Omicron. Take a look at the data here.