Scientists are seeing initial indications that the wave of infections with the omicron variant of the coronavirus in Great Britain may have peaked. This point in time is apparently imminent in the USA as well. The number of cases could then drop dramatically. The reason: Just one and a half months after it was discovered in South Africa, the variant turned out to be so highly contagious that hardly any people could be considered to be infected. “It’ll go back as fast as it shot up,” says Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics at the University of Washington in Seattle.
At the same time, experts limit that much is still unknown about the development of the next phase of the pandemic. Reaching the plateau or the ebb of the wave in the two countries does not happen at the same time or at the same speed everywhere. In addition, many people would continue to contract the virus even if their numbers fell, says Lauren Ancel Meyers, director of a Covid-19 modeling consortium at the University of Texas that predicts the peak of the wave in the United States this week.
The University of Washington models see infection numbers peaking at 1.2 million by Jan. 19. Then the numbers would drop dramatically, “simply because anyone who could be infected will be infected,” said Mokdad.
In the UK, the number of new infections fell to around 140,000 a day last week, according to government data. At the beginning of the month it was more than 200,000 every day.