Omicron now accounts for 73% of new coronavirus cases in the US, according to the CDC
Last edited Mon Dec 20, 2021, 08:42 PM - Edit history (1)
Source: CNN
The Omicron Covid-19 variant now accounts for over 73% of new coronavirus cases in the US, according to estimates posted Monday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
For the week ending December 18, Omicron accounted for 73.2% of cases, with Delta making up an additional 26.6%.
The week prior, ending December 11, Omicron was estimated at 12.6% of circulating virus, versus Delta's 87%. Previously, the CDC estimated Omicron accounted for about 3% that week.
Omicron is even more prevalent in certain parts of the country — making up over 95% of circulating virus in parts of the Northwest and Southeast, the data shows.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/20/health/us-coronavirus-monday/index.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
All I can say is wow. 
(Some snapshots that I have gathered over the past couple months taken from here - https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#variant-proportions)
LATEST DATA OF DELTA WITH OMICRON OVERTAKE (published 12/20/21)
EARLIER DATA WITH OMICRON EMERGENCE(published 12/16/21)
EARLIER DATA WITH DELTA PREDOMINANCE (published 11/16/21)
EARLIER REFERENCE DATA OF ALPHA (AND OTHER VARIANTS) WITH DELTA OVERTAKE (published 8/10/21)
Head of NIH says we may reach 1 million cases/day in the US alone 
I guess at this point I would hope that someone has some older samples still around to go back and sequence to see if was actually already here earlier than thought as part of a reason why it has taken over so quickly (aside from it obviously being more transmissible).
I had earlier posted a tweet in a couple previous threads from the Director of the Centre for Epidemic Response & innovation, South Africa (CERI) showing how Omicron so quickly slammed right into the fray - https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142840090
Link to tweet
@Tuliodna
·
Nov 25, 2021
Replying to @Tuliodna
This new variant is really worrisome at the mutational level. South Africa and Africa will need support (financially, public health, scientific) to control it so it does not spread in the world. Our poor and deprived population can not be in lockdown without financial support.
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Tulio de Oliveira
@Tuliodna
This new variant, B.1.1.529 seems to spread very quick! In less than 2 weeks now dominates all infections following a devastating Delta wave in South Africa (Blue new variant, now at 75% of last genomes and soon to reach 100%)
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11:44 AM · Nov 25, 2021
I just found he tweeted a summary of their recently submitted research on Omicron -
Link to tweet
@Tuliodna
·
Dec 18, 2021
Replying to @Tuliodna
Would like to thank and acknowledge the hard work on #Omicron of @GeneJockey15 @EduanWilkinson @WP87738523 @Carolyn86563982 @EvolveDotZoo @BhimanJinal @DarrenM98230782 @arambaut and many other authors that are not on Twitter!
Tulio de Oliveira
@Tuliodna
Manuscript 'Rapid epidemic expansion of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant in southern Africa' submitted to peer review and medRXiv, currently available at: https://krisp.org.za/manuscripts/ZHTOWa-MEDRXIV-2021-268028v1-deOliveira.pdf
2:44 PM · Dec 18, 2021
Publication (PDF) - https://t.co/CjGBovw7L5?amp=1
Part of the tweet thread includes this -
Link to tweet
@Tuliodna
·
Dec 18, 2021
Replying to @Tuliodna
The Omicron variant is exceptional for carrying over 30 mutations in the spike glycoprotein, predicted to influence antibody neutralization and spike function.
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Tulio de Oliveira
@Tuliodna
Omicron spread fast in South Africa and in four weeks went from (less than) 1% to close to 100% of infections. Figure 1C - Weekly progression of average daily cases per 100,000, test positivity rates, proportion of SGTF, and genomic prevalence of Omicron in nine provinces of South Africa
I know there have been some rumblings around the 'net that this variant might now be moving closer to being as transmissible as Measles given that Delta was getting close to Chicken Pox transmission rates already - https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/08/11/1026190062/covid-delta-variant-transmission-cdc-chickenpox
The exponential growth of Omicron is pretty breathtaking.
In South Africa - https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/12/10/1062498420/what-omicrons-fast-spread-could-mean-for-the-u-s-and-the-world
And this is what it did in the UK (London) -
Link to tweet
@EricTopol
Omicron has already become dominant in England (>50% cases) and the updated O-sign ( | ) in London quite prominent on this graph by @theosanderson
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Oliver Johnson
@BristOliver
Looks like Omicron became dominant in England on Tuesday (54.2% on 14th December specimens). And it's extremely striking how England growth (red) is at exactly the same speed as London (blue). Two regression lines are basically parallel, just England is ~4 days behind.
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2:41 PM · Dec 17, 2021
and you had restaurants with "bumper tables" to enforce the social distancing -
might be the fact that infections were never uniform over a fixed time period, both globally and domestically. In fact, an increasingly standard assumption has evolved that the U.S. infections from a new variant have occurred about "2 - 3 weeks after UK infections".
The pandemic has always been a bubbling cauldron where in a specific time range, a set of regions were hitting a peak of infection while other areas only had few or no confirmed cases.
As an extreme example, during the period when FL was peaking, a different large population states like NY, were at a lull, having come off their peak.
So the graph literally only shows the series of snapshots of total cases/deaths over time but is blending (smoothing) where they happened. I.e., this pandemic spread around the country (and world) in a non-uniform fashion. Early on in the pandemic in the U.S., your largest infections were happening in the northeast, and took time before hitting much of the rest of the country and you never had all of the states with large populations, simultaneously reaching a peak for cases, hospitalizations, or deaths at exactly the same time.
I expect it would be difficult to find time periods where there was some type of "synchronization" of peaks and valleys around the country.
I want to almost give an analogy like this -
So for example if you made a graph with a series of distinct overlaid plots for each locale and label (on the plot vs on an axis) the peaks for cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, with the Y axis as totals and the X axis showing time, you will see the skew better. Sortof like this -
Using actual NYT data, you see the skew (shift) (the Y-scale is a bit different but shouldn't be too much of an issue with the below comparisons but I wish they had kept the scales the same or allowed the Y axis to be adjustable so you could see a truer "overall" comparison) -
TEXAS
NEW YORK
FLORIDA
Where NY had been at a "lull" around the July time period and gradually increased while TX and FL suddenly exploded. Similarly you will see the November time frame where FL came off a large summer peak where NY was already taking off again.
So using the generic chart that I manually annotated with a yellow (ball-parked free-draw) curve to average the red/green/blue curves, you see sortof that average shift of the max and time (and normally the green would probably be a good fit for an average of red & blue, the blue has such a long tail that it would skew the whole average including the green line, to the right)-
So when looking at "global" (or say "U.S." ) "peaks", that is nothing but an "average over time" of all the data and the skew would be enough to distort trying to calculate the timing between cases and hospitalizations and then between hospitalizations and deaths, since those time intervals are only measured in weeks and the "waves" have never been uniform.
more time looking at narrower areas too for comparison (U.S. and individual states).
I much appreciate your time putting all this together! 
I was on a coffee IV drip trying to do that this morning!
I am certain you will see similar lag times between confirmed symptomatic positives and hospitalizations and then between hospitalizations through to fatal outcomes when focusing individually on smaller countries or regions/individual states here in the U.S.
The variable that would probably shift those lag times when compared to last year, is that now that we have vaccines and some additional treatments, you may have a longer lag between hospitalization and a fatality or no fatality at all once hospitalization is no longer needed (even for some of the more severe cases).
As an introvert, I enjoyed keeping distance from people long before COVID
I just ran across this in STAT news and thought of this thread.
https://www.statnews.com/2021/12/20/omicron-variant-now-makes-up-73-of-covid-infections-diagnosed-in-u-s/
