TheStorm said:
Wayland said:
statefan91 said:
Good to see the charts; the 7 day rolling number looks like we are down 80% from the apex of 806k cases (at 161k now).
Lowest number since 12/20/21. Hopefully will continue to drop.
I mean, who is not expecting the flattening and spring bump in the coming weeks (and the panic along with that).... followed by a decline going into summer..... and then a subsequent Southern wave (although of questionable size)... rinse and repeat.
We have discovered respiratory virus seasons. /s
Wayland, if you had to guess do you think the next wave is going to be another new variant or another round of Omicron... also for double or nothing, what general region of the world do you think we first start seeing it?
<shrug> I guess it will be whatever is the dominant variant at the time or whatever is circulating. Like last spring's wave was only like 60% Alpha (and the remainder was like Gamma and Iota *or whatever, don't have the other variants at my fingertips right now).
Right now we have three main variants of Omicron circulating in the U.S. The originally identified B.1.1.529 and then BA.1.1 (which I believe is a sub of 529) and BA.2.1 (so called 'stealth') (I think there may be a BA.3 as well... but whatever).
The timing of the waves, IMO, are mostly independent of what the variant is. We were going to have a winter wave... I think Omicron made it LOOK a lot different than if it was primarily Delta all the way through, but it was going to happen.
So, if someone decided that we should call BA.1.1 - Pi and BA.2.1 Rho, does that really change the fact that they are already out there and exist?
There have been barely any other variants that have gained new traction recently. I don't think any new variant would have time to be seeded before spring.
Would have to find something new that gets seeded in time for summer waves (or maybe a unrelated virus for the next season if COVID is exhausted for now?)