Thread by @DrEricDing

⚠️BA2 is now 34.9%

A wise mentor once taught me—whenever you see exponential change—#BA2—it’s safe to assume among 3 things:

📌Something new / different is driving it
📌It must be either faster/better/stronger
📌Something new will likely occur soon

Figure @DrWilliamKu #COVID19

2) this is now cases and hospitalization in UK which has been #BA2 dominant for many weeks. England hospitalizations is already approaching their December peak… and surged quite quickly after cases rose I might add (perhaps under testing during early surge?)

3) England lifted all restrictions on Feb 24th… cases surged again. This coincided with also #Ba2 surge. So England is having a double whammy of both dropping mitigation and BA2 at the same time. Way to effing go @BorisJohnson

4) another worrisome thing is that reinfection % rate has also begun to recently spike in England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿— coinciding with the surge in BA2 and cases— Especially worrisome since UK is surging after a recent BA1 Omicron wave. This is the stuff that I ponder at night why.

5) Also fascinating is that in the 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 December #Omicron wave, hospitalization rate trailed cases and was about 2% of cases at the peak, but now it’s significantly outpacing 2% in the new surge. This may not mean it’s more severe—more likely cases are heavily under-diagnosed.

6) has testing dropped in the UK? Yes by quite a bit, but testing per capita in UK is still significantly higher than the US. UK wave is definitely real (cases surging despite testing dropping is usually a bad sign). But the quick surge in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 hospitalizations is very worrisome.

7) As #BA2 grows, it will displace the older variant. You will not see a surge until the new variant overtakes the old. This is why US isn’t surging overall yet because BA2 still under 50%. Wait for the crisscross—that’s when it plateaus & reverses.

Diagram by @GosiaGasperoPhD

8) however, there is a matter of both when the criss-cross of the old #BA1 vs new #BA2 variant will occur. Some think late March or early April. And there is debate how quickly uptick will be afterwards—spring outdoor friendly weather could slow it. But no mask can accelerate it.

9) Ontario 🇨🇦 just hit around ~50% #BA2 this week. So how are things looking in Ontario? Their wastewater is now showing #SARSCoV2 resurgence province-wide, right on cue. Wastewater increase almost always precedes case rise in 1-2 weeks. Data doesn’t lie.
covid19-sciencetable.ca/ontario-dashbo…

10) In the annals of history… don’t be the dismissive person who history looks back with scorn for having dismissed #COVID19 whenever clearly #CovidIsNotOver. Yet many believe act with arrogance 👇

11) Danish officials got arrogant about #BA2 and this is their epic failure. Not only COVID deaths increased but also EXCESS deaths increased substantially. That is an epic fail if you ignore BA2.

12) Speaking of COVID deaths… yes, #BA2 is now driving increased deaths again in the UK. But do we honestly need to wait to see deaths before we act damnit?!?!

Original data source: coronavirus.data.gov.uk

Figure complied by @JoePajak

13) Folks— Join our new COVID Precaution Community below… open to all.

14) as expected with surging #BA2… the next wave is upon us. We predicted late March for the cross crossing of BA2 passing BA1. It’s here.