Surges, declines and surges

I haven’t done a post on this in a while, largely because most countries were showing declines in cases. Are we past the pandemic? I don’t know but it seems calmer or maybe it is calmer relative to the war going on elsewhere.

For a while it was just Asia and Europe surging but in the last week or so, the infection rates have calmed down in Asia – especially South Korea and Vietnam, which were driving the Asian surge. Europe did go through a period of declines, but the continent is now surging, with Germany in the lead. France, Italy and UK also comes to mind as surging. I think it’s the new Omicron BA2 variant. I haven’t heard anything about the lethality of the virus.

Here’s the latest graphics with Europe as the only continent surging. All graphics in this post are based upon data from Wikipedia – the one provided for the world.

Asia

I’m going to show Asia because South Korea and Vietnam were really surging furiously for a while. The Asian countries, for the most part, were able to contain the virus, but Omicron broke down their barriers and some Asian countries began to face surges. China is part of that mix, although the numbers are really tiny, so they don’t really show up well. Hong Kong was also another country that had done a stellar job of controlling the infection rate until Omicron came along.

The other Asian countries that are surging at the moment appears to be Japan and maybe Israel.

I don’t know if the variant driving the surges is the original Omicron or the BA2 version. The BA2 version is supposed to be more contagious – maybe 10 times the regular version. The regular version infects 1 to 2 individuals while the BA2 version was stated to be infecting 10 people per person infected. Again, the lethality is unknown – I haven’t seen any reporting on the deadliness of the newer version.

Europe

Here’s Europe. We see a lot of mixed trends – some down and some up. But overall, the continent as a whole is up.

US

[No graphics for US.]

All regions of the US are still trending down. Last week, I thought the overall numbers for the week were signaling a very tiny upward trend, but this week did not repeat, so for the moment, everything is quiet. In the last two years, the April and May months have shown case declines before the June summer heat hits the South. Everyone then goes indoors, and the surges begin in the South. I have to see if that pattern repeats this year.

Last week, the news did mention that the wastewater were showing signs of increasing virus particles. The next few weeks will tell if the wastewater are predicting a new round.

It feels like everyone is just done with the virus and no longer care to take precautionary measures – society just wants to go back to normal – go back to what we had pre-covid. The collection of data may actually decline so we may no longer get advance notice of a coming surge, especially in the hospitals. Those with vulnerabilities may no longer be able to tell when they have to become extra cautious because the data is no longer being collected. This period might actually be the most dangerous period for them because of lack of data (even though what we had before was incomplete).

My hometown did have a bump last week – a drastic increase in cases. This week the counts were not quite so alarming but still somewhat elevated. Are we getting ready to have a surge from Omicron BA2? I don’t know. I think the news have said that the wastewater were indicating increases in infections.

The spring and summer months might tell me the direction of this pandemic. Of course, everything is uncertain.