Omicron cases dropping partly due to not get reported?

Oculus Spirit [98219]

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2 of our 5 in the house were not reported

Feb 2, 2022, 10:13 AM

I imagine around 90% of Americans were "infected". Many with no symptoms, most with a mild cold, some worse. By the book, you have to reach about 90% infected with a virus like this to have cases drop. And they are dropping now for real. And only 3,600 people died yesterday in the US from this "cold", so anyway.

Delta didn't go away, and this one won't either. Just the way it is. I expect cases to drop 50%, maybe a bit more, but they will level off at some point higher than delta, and stay there for a while. We're already on round 2 in our house. 4yo and 12yo sick, again, and positive, again. 4yo isn't vaccinated, 12yo is. Preschool said 4yo could return since he was recovered. They don't wear masks at the preschool. So 4yo returned, and now his entire class at school is out. They closed his class for a week, just learned. 12yo is out for 5 days, but can go back if no symptoms, even though he will spread it again. But they wear masks in middle school, so that helps.

But the likelyhood of cases dropping down to low levels is slim. Omicron provides no significant immunity to any other known prior variant. PLUS, there's a new omicron variant that it likewise provides little immunity to as well. So the new omicron will move in and reinfect people. It is called BA2, and the original omicron is BA1. BA2 is as genetically different from BA1 as Wuhan covid was to the Alpha variant. Same number of mutations. It's a lot, and technically should be a seperate variant based on mutation numbers alone. This is why cases will not fall much, and many will be reinfected. Also why herd immunity is an ongoing illusion. Many of these mild cases, will be reinfections within 1-2 months. We lasted a month. More severe cases, those hospitalized, etc. will have some higher level of immunity (more time before reinfection). I'd predict cases level off somewhere above 2,000 cases a day in SC on average, and then climb some, then we will see, but that's through March I expect. Our deaths will likely hit last winter's peak or get very close to it. They're already averaging more than the delta wave, and are at the second highest levels we've seen in the country, only beaten by the deaths last January.

In the UK they changed their testing guidelines to show reinfections as well. Previously, if you tested positive, you were excluded from being counted again for a period of time, as it was assumed you then had immunity for a period. This assumption is not correct with omicron and they realize it now. It wasn't with Delta really, but counting reinfections allows you to monitor the next variant (BA2) which will come through and cause "reinfections", even though it's a new variant, it isn't being counted a such. Same thing they did with Delta.

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Omicron cases dropping partly due to not get reported?

Same here after returning from FLA vacay

well, Mrs No and I both did home tests, both positive, both

Dropping because that's what viruses do

2 of our 5 in the house were not reported

we test for Delta in the doodoo

Yeah, the other omicron hasn't spiked in the US, yet anyway.

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