3506 Americans died of #COVID19 yesterday—more than 9/11. Yes We all want pandemic over, but we don’t get to arbitrarily decide if COVID is over. Meantime, listen to @mehdirhasan 👇 in his blistering 60 seconds.
2) We don’t get to decide when COVID is over… the virus decides when it has been suppressed enough. But the virus is learning to adapt. The BA2 subvariant of #Omicron is here and taking the world by storm once again… see thread 🧵
3) we have a new reigning variant in Denmark 🇩🇰— it’s #BA2#Omicron sublineage. And it is now over 50% and dominant!
4) it is not fear-mongering to tell the truth and share data… and the data clearly shows we are in big trouble once again with #BA2 subvariant of #Omicron — it is ~2x faster growth than old BA1 Omicron. ➡️ I think BA2 deserves VOC status asap. And perhaps a new name.
📍CDC warns re close contact with @CDCgov lab monkeys—“If within 5 feet of the 🙊crates without respiratory & eye protection, monitor yourself for signs of illness including fever, fatigue, cough, diarrhea, & vomiting." ➡️Monkeys were not CDC quarantined. A bystander also sick🧵
2) apparently the 100 monkeys headed to the CDC lab were from Africa and **were not quarantined**! What kind of animal import protocol is this? ➡️ plus, the woman stepped in the monkey feces. pahomepage.com/news/danville-…
3) “Since the monkeys were not quarantined and monitored, the CDC told Fallon she needs to take precautions because she was in close contact.
According to the CDC, this species commonly spreads herpes virus B through saliva, feces or urine.
📍PEDIATRIC #COVID19 HOSPITALIZATION—Still surging is hospital COVID admissions in England 🏴—another new all time record among kids 6-17. However, there are even more COVID hospital admissions in kids 0-5, despite fewer kids 0-5 than 6-17. Let that sink in!
3) Let this sink in — even South Africa’s latest report is warning about the much much higher case-admission risk of #Omicron in kids age 0-4 vs delta. And such kids have higher case admission than even the elderly! The data doesn’t lie!
NEW—3 cases of the new #BA2 subvariant of #Omicron has been found in Texas. But it’s again being stupidly downplayed by @CDCgov saying it’s very low. But it was once low in Denmark 🇩🇰 too! ➡️Today—BA2 is now fully dominant in 🇩🇰—65% of all #COVID19 now! 🧵 washingtonpost.com/health/2022/01…
2) Denmark’s #Omicron was almost all BA1 before. Now it is majority BA2. The coronavirus doesn’t screw around. If a new variant wins over the previous — you know it is more aggressive in some way or another.
3) So let’s think it through — if BA1 #Omicron has infected a huge swath of the population already in many countries (DK being one of them), but now BA2 emerges & quickly growing— it must have some competitive advantage!! There’s almost no other way to explain sudden replacement.
📈RESURGENCE—Worrisome that #Omicron is somehow surging ⬆️ upwards again across Southern England 🏴. London’s case drop has also stalled —now flat. Likely due to dropping #COVID19 mitigations & throwing caution to the wind by @BorisJohnson & @sajidjavid.
2) I’m not sure it’s #BA2 subvariant of Omicron yet. The sequencing of BA2 shows it’s still low in 🇬🇧 but increasing exponentially for sure. Many estimate it will be dominant in mid FEB in England. Someone to keep an eye on.
3) we definitely need to keep an eye on #BA2– the latest models of competitive growth of BA2 vs older vanilla BA1 #Omicron shows a ~2x growth advantage… even higher in England than in Denmark.
⚠️90%-120% FASTER—New model on the new #BA2 subvariant shows a ⬆️90% competitive growth advantage over vanilla BA1 #Omicron in Denmark🇩🇰. Worse, modeling in England🏴 shows ⬆️~120% faster BA2 advantage over BA1. 🧵
HT @JPWeiland (who correctly said Omicron was 5-6x Delta before)
2) #BA2 is now over 50% in Denmark! It only took 1 month to overtake the already super contagious original BA1 #Omicron.
3) in the Netherlands 🇳🇱, #BA2 is also surging and displacing the old BA1 #Omicron.
I’m concerned about the new #BA2 sub variant of #Omicron. In the left panel, you see it is surging (light green) to almost half of all Danish 🇩🇰 #Omicron cases—surpassing the old Omicron BA1 variant by a lot. Either it’s much faster transmission or it evades immunity even more.👇
2) Elsewhere in 🇬🇧, while still early, #BA2 Omicron subvariant is doubling now every ~4 days right now… while every 4 days is slower than original #Omicron displacing delta every 1.5-3 days, BA2 displacing Omicron BA1 is a really bad sign.
3) Denmark, #BA2 passed BA1 on Jan 12th it seems (we are only knowing now due to sequencing delays).