Are Londoners making trash assumptions about reduced #COVID19 in wastewater? Has Omicron really peaked? Some reasons to be cautious about declaring victory prematurely…
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Wastewater is a good measure of overall prevalence of #COVID19 at the moment, but like any metric, must be used thoughtfully. Levels dropped the first week after winter holidays because schools were remote and there were fewer social gatherings.
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But schools have re-opened. The spread of the original virus was amplified between 6% and 13% last Spring in Ontario, @COVIDSciOntario found. Omicron is 19-times more transmissible, @fordnation is pressuring school boards to hide positive cases from parents of classmates.
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W/almost no testing available, wastewater might be our best metric, but wastewater results lag by more than a week. If it takes two weeks of open schools to see effects on community transmission, we might not see that in wastewater until the 2nd and 3rd weeks of February.
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And when we speak about plateaus, we must distinguish between overall community transmission and the burden in hospitals that have forced needed surgeries and procedures to be delayed. We need to know the penetration of #COVID19 among groups most at-risk.
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But the lack of testing and contact tracing leaves us in the dark, and while that uncertainty has left @alexsummers4 has been correctly cautious, it has emboldened @fordnation to push open further and faster, changes that could further amplify Omicron.
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The one clear measure trending the right way is the shrinking number of healthcare workers who have #COVID19 - it’s still in the hundreds in London but getting smaller; that mat buy more hospital capacity.
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7/7
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