New COVID-19 Pandemic Waves Caused by Omicron and Efficiency of Vaccinations

Abstract

The sharp increase in the number of new COVID-19 cases in late 2021 and early 2022, which is associated with the spread of a new strain of coronavirus - omicron - is of great concern and makes it necessary to make at least approximate forecasts for the pandemic dynamics of the epidemic. As this rapid growth occurs even in countries with high levels of vaccinations, the question arises as to their effectiveness. The smoothed daily number of new cases and deaths per capita and the ratio of these characteristics were used to reveal the appearance of new coronavirus strains and to estimate the effectiveness of quarantine, testing and vaccination. The third year of the pandemic allowed us to compare the pandemic dynamics in the period from September 2020 to January 2021 with the same period one year later for Ukraine, EU, the UK, USA, India, Brazil, South Africa, Argentina, Australia, and in the whole world. Record numbers of new cases registered in late 2021 and early 2022 once again proved that existing vaccines cannot prevent new infections, and vaccinated people can spread the infection as intensively as non-vaccinated ones. Fortunately, the daily number of new cases already diminishes in EU, the UK, USA, South Africa, and Australia. In late January - early February 2022, the maximum averaged numbers of new cases are expected in Brazil, India, EU, and worldwide. Omicron waves can increase the numbers of deaths per capita, but in highly vaccinated countries, the deaths per case ratio significantly decreases. Highlights: Vaccinated persons can get and pass the new coronavirus variants. The probability of death is much lower for vaccinated persons.

Epidemic waves caused by SARS‐CoV‐2 omicron (B.1.1.529) and pessimistic forecasts of the COVID‐19 pandemic duration

“…According to the predictions for the 14th wave in Ukraine, the average daily numbers of new cases and infectious persons will stop to increase around February 6 and 10, 2022, respectively (see black dotted and dashed lines in Figure 1A ). The day with the maximum of new cases for the omicron wave in Ukraine correlates with the results of comparative analysis presented by Nesteruk and Rodionov 1 and recent observations shown by black crosses.…”

“…Comparative analysis yielded some preliminary predictions of time durations when the maximal number of new cases are expected. 1 To estimate the duration of new pandemic waves and the number of infectious persons, different versions of susceptible‐infected‐removed (SIR) model can be applied (see e.g., 2 , 3 , 4 ). In particular, generalized SIR model and a corresponding parameter identification procedure 4 were used to simulate 13 epidemic waves for Ukraine and six pandemic waves for the whole world.…”

Coronavirus and incomes: the COVID-19 pandemic dynamics in Africa in February 2022

“…Features of the COVID-19 pandemic dynamics need further study despite the huge number of investigations in this area. In particular, there are many studies comparing the COVID-19 pandemic dynamics in different regions and the impact of various factors [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. Since the populations of different countries are very different, we will use relative characteristics: accumulated numbers of laboratory confirmed cases per capita (CC), averaged daily numbers of new cases per capita (DCC), averaged daily numbers of new deaths per capita (DDC).…”

“…Since the populations of different countries are very different, we will use relative characteristics: accumulated numbers of laboratory confirmed cases per capita (CC), averaged daily numbers of new cases per capita (DCC), averaged daily numbers of new deaths per capita (DDC). Since these characteristics change over time, it is worth comparing these relative characteristics at different moments and periods of time [9, 10, 14, 15, 17]. In [9] June 27, 2021 and the following demographic factors: size of population, its density per square kilometer, and the level of urbanization were used to find correlations with CC values in Ukrainian regions and European countries.…”

“…In [9] the DCC values for Argentina, Brazil, India, South Africa, Ukraine, EU, the UK, USA, and the whole world for the period from March to August 2020 were compared with the corresponding values in 2021. In [14, 17] DCC and DDC values and vaccination levels in the same countries and Australia for the period from September to January have been compared.…”