That is based on the forecast of the Covid forecast consortium. This outlook was published on Wednesday afternoon as a possible scenario that is realistic based on the data available.
Spreads twice to three times as fast
The experts based their calculations on the assumption that Omikron spreads twice to three times as fast as the delta variant and has an effective reproduction number between 1.5 and 2.4. Which is supported by the numbers in Austria, where the virus variant was first detected at the end of November and has been accumulating rapidly since then. The consortium assumes “that the Omikron variant will become dominant within a few weeks and, if the increase continues unchecked, could exceed the previous high of daily new infections in January 2022”. A slower growth of the omicron variant is “so far not compatible with the observed courses of the infection curve in countries that already have a higher omicron prevalence”.
More than 15,000 new infections at the beginning of January
Specifically, with an assumed effective reproductive number of at least 1.97 and the prerequisite that ten to 20 percent of all infections with SARS-CoV-2 are due to the Omikron variant, there are already more than 15,000 new corona in the first week of January in this country -Count cases per day. According to the consortium, the extent to which Omikron leads to difficult courses and hospital stays cannot yet be reliably assessed. “It is plausible that an infection that has already been passed through or a double vaccination also protects against severe courses to a certain extent,” said the experts’ policy brief. If you take into account the fact that 70 percent of the total population now have an active vaccination certificate and quite a few have had an infection or a Covid 19 disease, “a reduced hospitalization rate can be expected, at least for the Omikron variant,” says the committee .
Source: Nachrichten
