The Omicron BA.2 variant is now reversing the trend in Europe

I did a quick check and the daily case count in all of those countries in the rolling average chart has been dropping for at least several days except for the UK where it's been kind of flat.  They omitted Denmark, which was supposedly a B2 hotspot, and its last daily case count  was the lowest in months.


bub said:

I did a quick check and the daily case count in all of those countries in the rolling average chart has been dropping for at least several days except for the UK where it's been kind of flat.  They omitted Denmark, which was supposedly a B2 hotspot, and its last daily case count  was the lowest in months.

I don't know where you're getting your data. Perhaps you could tell me so I can compare them to Worldometer's Coronavirus reporting. Here are the new daily cases with the 7-day moving average line layered on for those countries.


Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. Italy is showing signs of a reversal but it's still early there.


China Locks Down Shenzhen, Province of 24 Million Over Covid

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-locks-down-iphone-tech-235320042.html

(Bloomberg) -- China placed the 17.5 million residents of Shenzhen into lockdown for at least a week and forbade people from leaving Jilin, the first time the government has sealed off an entire province since the area surrounding Wuhan was isolated in early 2020.


As alarming as those reports have been, I've been staying away from mentioning China's data and how they handle this COVID nonsense. I don't trust their data reporting. That said, if their case count and death toll is valid, I'll have to accept my responsibility for unfairly disparaging their government's response.

For now, I call, no, shout ****.


Whenever I look up a country name and "Covid" it takes me to this site.  Here's Greece.  Click the 2 week range for new cases:

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=greece+covid


 


As I'm sure you figured out, you can stay with the link and check out all of the other countries.  I don't know why there are data discrepancies between different sites.  I'm not in a position to judge one vs the other.


PeterWick said:

As alarming as those reports have been, I've been staying away from mentioning China's data and how they handle this COVID nonsense. I don't trust their data reporting. That said, if their case count and death toll is valid, I'll have to accept my responsibility for unfairly disparaging their government's response.

For now, I call, no, shout ****.

I get the impression that China is one of those countries that did a good job of keeping the virus bottled up initially only to see infection rates rise quickly as the more contagious variants arrived.


bub said:

Whenever I look up a country name and "Covid" it takes me to this site.  Here's Greece.  Click the 2 week range for new cases:

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=greece+covid

Cool. I'll check it out. Thanks.


bub said:

Whenever I look up a country name and "Covid" it takes me to this site.  Here's Greece.  Click the 2 week range for new cases:

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=greece+covid
 

Things sure are different in parts of Europe these past 2 weeks. It's funny when you look at the last 2 weeks interval on that app, the Y-axis changes to give the best view of the data and it makes these curves look flat. These countries all had significant increases in the 7-day moving average of new cases per day though, especially Germany, Austria, and Switzerland (OMG! 62%).

Germany had a 131.8K+ 7-day moving average for new daily cases on March 2nd

196K+ 7-day moving average new daily cases on March 13th  

That comes to a 48% increase in the 7-day moving average in 11 days.

------------
 In those same 11 days.

Austria has a similar 48% rise
Switzerland has a 62% rise
Greece has a 25% rise
The UK has a 35% rise
Italy has a 32% rise

In contrast, the US has seen a 48% decrease in those same 11 days. Can we keep that trend?


Fingers crossed and awaiting today's numbers.

The course of B2 is still puzzling.  It was discovered back in November I think.  There are articles going back to January talking about how it had already jumped from the UK to the US.  If all there was to be said about it was that it was 1.5 times more transmissible than Omicron - a mind blowing thought - where has it been?  So is any recent short term uptick due to B2 or is it the recent loosening of rules and behavior and perhaps the old concern about waning strength of the vaccines over time? 


The hospitalization rate for older adults (85+) in the UK due to BA.2 has exceeded that from the omicron era. A similar pattern is showing up in other countries and age groups.

BA2 & 1-year hospitalization RECORD HIGH in Age 85&up—I don’t know how many dismissive TV pundits need to hear this—but #BA2 is mostly definitely causing a huge hospitalization spike in England

Worse, BA2 rate in 65+ now just exceeded old Omicron!


https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1504835672741396489?s=20&t=2TRTdIdHLzTQ5vBgQ8LpEw


CDC: Omicron variant BA.2 spreading rapidly across New York and New Jersey

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/omicron-variant-ba2-ny-nj/


With the help of border closures and WFH orders, Hong Kong likely peaked with the BA.2 in the first week of March at 74k cases per day (via PCR and self reported RAT testing).  Yesterday that total number was down to 20k.   I don't know why we don't do 7-day moving averages like the rest of the world. 


It is good to hear that cases are coming down. It took closing off the borders and making people stay home, at least those who could work from home. That quashed it in what, 3 weeks? Let's hope we can do that here if BA.2 really takes hold.

It's wild to look at the graphs for HK, Viet Nam, and South Korea. I've heard the claims that this is happening because they didn't let people catch COVID earlier. Or some other ****. I just hope their death count doesn't get worse.


Approx numbers from recent days in Europe (including the countries in that rolling average chart from a few days ago) showing either decline or flatness in daily positive tests.  I know its only  few days but this talk of a B2 surge is based on a pretty short time frame too.  

18

UK

3/14 170,000   3/18  92,000

Greece

3/16  26,000   3/18  23,000

Austria

3/16  58,000   3/18  51,000

Germany

3/16  294,000    3/18  260,000

Switzerland

3/14  69,000   3/18  27,000

Denmark

3/15  10,000   3/18 7,000

France

3/15  106,000   3/18  96,000


Hopefully. What are we seeing and hearing in the local news now? This is our chance to be ready because we've been warned well in advance. Keep masking up indoors. You do NOT want to risk even a mild infection now that much more data about long COVID symptoms is out.


Per today's reports, the Essex County and NJ numbers are still good (although Maplewood had a relatively big one day jump, by the recent low standards, of 16 new cases for some reason).  


There was a breakout of COVID amongst the cast of Newsies, which is why they postponed the second weekend of shows by one week.


Aww, ****. I hope they're okay.


The Essex County report is extremely good today.  8 new cases in total for the whole county.  Almost hard to believe.  Will report on the statewide numbers when they come in (usually around 11:30)


Statewide numbers very good today. 


Here are some of the pages of this thread from Andy Slavitt.

https://twitter.com/ASlavitt/status/1505605410161451009?s=20&t=BkVZS7EHq5-2wOyGvfjCew

But there’s something else that @BillHanage pointed out to me that other experts verified.

We didn’t have the same Omicron as Europe in the US. We had a worse one. And that may actually help us now. 8/

-----------------------

We didn’t have BA.1.

We actually had BA.1.1.

BA.1.1 is actually a sub-lineage or BA.1, a sub lineage of Omicron. This is not uncommon but could actually make a difference. BA.1.1 is more contagious than BA.1– meaning the marginal impact of BA2 could be less noticeable. 10/

----------

So BA.2 is already growing quickly in the US. 40% of all cases in parts of the Northeast. And yet— cases continue to drop— even in the Northeast. ER use isn’t rising.

Wastewater is showing the increase of BA.2 but we’re not feeling it. I want to add “, yet” but I don’t know.11


PeterWick said:

The hospitalization rate for older adults (85+) in the UK due to BA.2 has exceeded that from the omicron era. A similar pattern is showing up in other countries and age groups.

BA2 & 1-year hospitalization RECORD HIGH in Age 85&up—I don’t know how many dismissive TV pundits need to hear this—but #BA2 is mostly definitely causing a huge hospitalization spike in England

Worse, BA2 rate in 65+ now just exceeded old Omicron!


https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1504835672741396489?s=20&t=2TRTdIdHLzTQ5vBgQ8LpEw

I’m in the UK this week. Based on a first day of being in a north London neighborhood, I’d say it’s 10/90 on wearing masks in stores vs going maskless. Headed to Devon later this week, will try to avoid tightly packed public transport via the ancient American route of spending vast quantities of money on frivolous taxis to get the train. I’m masking up, still, btw. Have to pass that test to get home.


FYI i just checked latest stats.  From Saturday to Sunday, new cases continued to drop in the Euro countries that were on that rolling average list, which was cited to show a recent surge.


bub said:

FYI i just checked latest stats.  From Saturday to Sunday, new cases continued to drop in the Euro countries that were on that rolling average list, which was cited to show a recent surge.

Indeed. And the past 2 patterns have shown a progression to the US as those countries experiencing the early stages saw their cases decline.


Cartoon from Politico:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/5yHNRcFrMURr45v26


Cases up slightly in NJ this past week.


Update. I passed the test.


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