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What's Up With Me
My current sense is that Omicron cases will likely peak by late January, and we should see them start to go down by mid-February (90% confidence). We can see this from New York
City, which peaked early (see graph below). Omicron is very likely milder than Delta (95% confidence), but the much higher infectiousness and lesser vaccine effectiveness will still result in hospital overload in many locations (95% confidence). Less likely to happen in locations with better vaccination rates and excellent hospital systems, but if you're in a different location, watch out. Of course, the overload will be a week or two behind the peak, given that it takes time for cases to translate into hospitalizations. That will cause fear and, in some areas, serious disruptions (85% confidence). And of course, we’re seeing serious disruptions in some areas due to people being in quarantine - glad the CDC relaxed quarantine standards. By the start of March, the situation should get much better (80% confidence). By May, we should have less cases than we had before Omicron (75% confidence).
Another important dynamic: we have a huge number of people who are asymptomatic due to the much milder nature of Omicron. About 8% in San Francisco, where we have good data, and I assume that rates in other major cities are pretty similar. This means that many who think they're fine are actually infectious. In addition, masks are not highly effective unless yours is a N95 or KN95, and even with the best mask you can still get sick with enough exposure
will get you sick, just because of how infectious Omicron happens to be. The result is a much higher chance of someone getting many others sick unintentionally. The intuitions that many people developed during the first two years of the pandemic don't apply with Omicron, so you need to be careful about these intuitions and intentionally decide whether it's worth it to take any additional steps to protect yourself during the remainder of the Omicron peak.
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