Has Omicron broken the 120 day SARS-CoV-2 global wave cycle?

Africa, America, Asia, Australasia, BA.1, BA.2, Coronavirus, Delta, Europe, Infection, Omicron, Reinfection, Transmission, Vaccine Breakthrough, Vaccine Waning

Has the 120 global Covid wave cycle been broken by the Omicron variant? We’re about to find out.

The global winter wave of 20221/2022 finally peaked around the 24th January 2022, but that was nearly three weeks later than we had been expecting.

To see whether the 120 day wave pattern will continue, we have created a mock-up image, seen below, of what the wave would look like if the timing were still in place.

The trough of the winter wave would be around the 18th February 2022. That doesn’t leave enough time for the wave to fall back to previous base levels at the current rate of decay.

A global wave trough in mid-February this year would probably mean the pandemic continuing, but with much higher infection levels in future. It’s difficult to see how future waves could return to their 2021 base levels, particularly as any new variant would have to be even more transmissible than Omicron variant to survive.

If there is another Covid wave though, will we even know about it?

The UK government has just announced that it will begin winding down all SARS-CoV-2 testing within weeks. Other governments are already planning to follow suit. Their plan is to end the pandemic by simply not mentioning it. Could this be the first disease in history to be conquered by simply forcing it from the headlines?

Ignoring the virus will certainly bring a quicker end to the pandemic. It’s just not the end that any rational person would have had in mind though.

At this juncture, we find ourselves in agreement with the World Health Organisation on the immediate future of the Covid-19 pandemic. As Maria Van Kerkhove of the WHO said some months ago, the virus isn’t done with us yet. 

 

 

Will Omicron break the 120-day Sars-CoV-2 global wave cycle?

 

 

 

 

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

** This post was originally published on February 8, 2022 **