Covid19mathblog.com
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but Omicron is some scary variant – don’t want to be a scare monger but the amazing speed of transmission is astounding. We have two flights showing spread of around 10% in flight! https://www.ggdkennemerland.nl/nieuws/2021/11/Update-geteste-reizigers-Zuid-Afrika?s=09
As you recall an early study of a 14 hr flight with the Alpha did not lead to transmission – https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30314-5/fulltext
*Omicron must need a very low level of viral load to infect relative to other variants. Anecdotally I observed this from various people and my own home front now where my son arriving from college for break has tested positive.
Unfortunately Omicron looks to evade both vaccine and many monoclonal treatment – https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.14.472719v1.full.pdf
“We found B.1.1.529 to be markedly resistant to neutralization by serum not only
from convalescent patients, but also from individuals vaccinated with one of the four widely
used COVID-19 vaccines. Even serum from persons vaccinated and boosted with mRNA-based
vaccines exhibited substantially diminished neutralizing activity against B.1.1.529. By
evaluating a panel of monoclonal antibodies to all known epitope clusters on the spike protein,
we noted that the activity of 18 of the 19 antibodies tested were either abolished or impaired,
including ones currently authorized or approved for use in patients. In addition, we also
identified four new spike mutations (S371L, N440K, G446S, and Q493R) that confer greater
antibody resistance to B.1.1.529. The Omicron variant presents a serious threat to many existing
COVID-19 vaccines and therapies, compelling the development of new interventions that
anticipate the evolutionary trajectory of SARS-CoV-2”
“The potency of class 1 and class 2 RBD mAbs all dropped by >100-fold, as did the
more potent mAbs in RBD class 3 (REGN10987, COV2-2130, and 2-7). The activity of S309
declined modestly, whereas Brii-198 was spared. All mAbs in RBD class 4 lost neutralization
potency against B.1.1.529 by at least 10-fold, as did mAb directed to the antigenic supersite26 113 (4-
18) or the alternate site23 114 (5-7) on NTD. Strikingly, all four combination mAb drugs in clinical
use lost substantial activity against B.1.1.529, likely abolishing or impairing their efficacy in
patients.”
“recent reports showed that the efficacy of two doses of BNT162b2 vaccine has dropped
from over 90% against the original SARS-CoV-2 strain to approximately 40% and 33% against
B.1.1.529 in the United Kingdom32 and South Africa33 174 , respectively. Even a third booster shot
may not adequately protect against Omicron infection”
The value add off the vaccine may purely be the vaccine is just keeping the immune system primed.
It looks like my forecast of deaths this winter could be low – even my high case as my model did not start off with such high levels of contagion and assumed the efficacy of the vaccine closer to 70%. https://covid19mathblog.com/2021/09/covid-9-1-21-update/
Many reports that Omicron is mild relative to past variants but the volume of spread would likely outweigh the benefit of being mild as those in poor health will likely cause a fatality.
IF we could go back in time we should have definitely promoted healthy habits as I am sure Omicron fatality will be skewed to the unhealthy as noted in recent breakthrough studies and this is before Omicron – https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/press-release/breakthrough-covid-19-hospitalizations-among-fully-vaccinated-patients-occur-most-often-among-older-adults-and-involve-people-with-chronic-health-conditions/
“Larger shares of fully vaccinated adults hospitalized with breakthrough COVID-19 had selected chronic conditions including, hypertension, diabetes, heart failure, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) compared to those hospitalized with COVID-19 who were not fully vaccinated.”
All is not completely loss the US military has a super vaccine in the works – does that mean to sell Pfizer and Moderna? – https://www.newsweek.com/super-vaccine-effective-against-all-covid-variants-omicron-created-army-1662000?
“In a few weeks, scientists at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) are expected to announce a vaccine that is effective against all SARS and COVID variants, including Omicron.
The vaccine has been in the works for almost two years, Defense One reported, after the army received its first DNA sequencing of the COVID virus in early 2020. The military at an early stage attempted to make a vaccine that would be effective against different variants, the news outlet reported.
Unlike the other products, Walter Reed’s is a spike ferritin nanoparticle vaccine, which has a soccer-ball shaped protein with 24 faces, allowing it to attach to the spikes of multiple COVID variants on different faces of the protein.”
In the US we are now at 15.5% of the population having confirmed covid at some point. Remember the Princess Diamond which was my worse case scenario is at 20%. Mexico fatality rate has dropped amazingly from avg over 7% to now 1.6%
If we look at the US we breached last year spread but now back down. Fatality rates only improved 60-70% from last year – still expected to show a reduction of deaths from last winter – just not as much as initially anticipated. Last winter(Oct-Mar) 551K deaths.
UK on the other hand they have almost a 3X transmission rate from last year – the good news is there fatality rates have improved 7X so they SHOULD observe less deaths this winter. Last winter 127K deaths
Germany is observing 4X transmission but only 2.5X improvement in fatality rates. They could see more deaths than last winter which was at 77K.
Even Sweden is seeing a huge surge in confirmations. 3X more transmission but fatality rate improvement of over 10X so they should see less winter deaths this year vs last of 13K
South Africa confirmation surge came down but is not rising and still above last years level. Fatality rate has drop 10X.
South Korea is observing 12X transmission rate while fatality rate only improved by 70% – this will likely mean more deaths vs last year 1.3K.
Still Northern states leading confirmation
Hopkins TX now leads all counties with transmission rate – they do have a low vaccination rate 46.6% – Tompkins NY second place with 81% vaccination rate.
