Thread by @joaquinlife

It's early but wanted to check out the growth for Omicron in relation to Delta. Two things stand out 1) that Delta had relatively low numbers, easier for Omicron to overtake it and 2) taking first 5 days of 1st and 2nd week, Omicron samples are increasing by ~2.75 times weekly.

The cases here additionally show that Omicron didn't overpower Delta but rather that Delta appears to have burnt itself out and Omicron has been opportunistic in the vacuum. How does Omicron do under conditions where Delta is highly prevalent and surges are occurring, and after?

This is not to say that Omicron isn't formidable as a similar scenario happened here in the United States as we reached the lowest numbers since March 2020 in June of 2021 which is when Delta became dominant in the U.S.

This may suggest that the most vulnerable areas in the United States are those that recently went through their surge and but have dropped down to near or below pre-surge levels (e.g., Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, etc.).

These four states: Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii (not pictured) all have bottomed out similar to South Africa and might have little competition by way of Delta in order to follow a similar path toward becoming dominant.

One question that spurs more is on the genomic sequencing samples: what was the criteria for sequencing them in the first place? Are random samples sequenced or is it primarily hospitalizations? This may give some indication on whether there are changes in severity with Omicron.

Trying to determine growth in Botswana but testing/submissions appears to be inconsistent by looking at numbers over the past 6 months... often will go a few days with 0 cases and then have thousands of cases 😕

Here we go, South Africa is more consistent on testing and it is mirroring the growth rate I was calculating with the genomic sequencing data which suggests 3x growth, 50% higher growth than Delta. Yikes.