Will this unlikely hero save next Christmas?

As a society, we struggle a lot with nonlinear thinking. Indeed, combined with the ugly sisters of both politics and arrogance, usually in the form of the Dunning-Kruger effect, that is a perfect storm that elongated the pandemic in both duration and veracity.

Yet, we're starting to see something interesting in the data that's worth covering before curtains [on 2021] because it shows us a surprising light at the end of a tunnel. Though not before a rocky patch.

James Ward, another mathematician who’s spending his own time graphing pandemic data, publishes his work on twitter and has started to see slight reductions in hospitalisations in London, despite omicron increasing?

Omicron is extremely virulent, with a doubling time of just over 1.6 days [before turning into a pumpkin]! People are even able to catch it in hospital. Given how voracious omicron is, a drop like this is completely counter-intuitive!

[much like glass slippers]

That is, unless you understand the beauty in nonlinear systems and how severe omicron is. In this case, it leads to an unlikely [panto] hero on the pandemic stage.

Myth: More Virulent means Higher Peaks

Nonlinear systems exhibit complex behaviours and this includes pandemics. A more destructive virus doesn't automatically mean that its higher infectivity leads to a larger peak (but note, we must act like it does until we know otherwise). It depends on how rapidly the viable population are consumed by the virus. Too quick and lethal, it rages through the population fast, killing its hosts and itself in the process, and can remove its victims from the viable population faster than the virus can infect others. But in turn, this means it doesn't survive to infect anyone else. This is why Ebola, which kills 50% of the people it touches, never reaches 0.01% of any one country's population. While almost 20% of the UK alone has had a confirmed case of COVID.

People isolating [again, before and after midnight] is an ideal way to prevent the spread of the virus into another household and slows down the cycle-time from one person to the next outside the home. It also reduces the addressable population that COVID-19 can then infect. Bringing down the R_e rate (which most folk will know as the misdefined "R-rate")

With COVID-19, its contagion and incubation periods are a fixed number. So we can't change that, but lockdowns do work and crucially, with Omicron, this may mean it'll work even better, as long as it's at least as long as 4 weeks and people stick to it. But an interesting effect happens to the numbers when you combine the following things:

1. The lower severe hospitalisations with Omicron compared to Delta
2. Faster Omicron spread to become dominant
3. No serious reinfection with Delta to Omicron variants of COVID within 3 months (hypothetical - back to this in a bit)

As the number of people catching omicron goes through the roof, they don't catch Delta as well. This reduces the number of people going into hospital because Omicron take space that Delta failed to do. Delta wasn't fast, so it's last. A lot of people forget that not only is the virus competing against us, they are competing against the other variants as well.?

"It's behind you!"

Every case of Omicron takes one person out of Delta’s infectivity pool. This means fewer people are able to catch Delta so severely to then be hospitalised in an ICU bed. Since it reduces the pool Delta can fish in by a factor of almost 3 cases of Omicron for every 1 of Delta. Luckily for us, Omicron appears to be less lethal than Delta, but if we can’t catch Omicron after Delta in short order, Delta may be wiped out by the fact Omicron has infected us. Like using water to cleanse your palate when whisky tasting.

Herd Immunity?

Is this the point where the “herd immunity strategy” might work? Well, I’m not suggesting that. After all, Some people won't find it mild, there is a cross-over point where the greater infection rate will cause it to overtake any moderate COVID hospital demand and eventually the current ICU rates. Plus, the population or a poor public health protection strategy could still blow it. So, as always, until you know these facts it's dangerous to make assumptions.

Key to this is the missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle in the form of the hypothetical I’m hoping virologists have the answer to.?

1. Does Omicron infect people who’ve had Delta in the last 2 months (or even one month)?
2. Can anyone who’s been infected with Omicron, then catch Delta?

I’d love to know the answer to these.

Given the number of mutations in Omicron, it did cross my mind we should basically consider it a separate disease. Plus, reports indicate different Omicron mutations are appearing in Germany. Meaning it is still the wrong time to deploy a herd immunity strategy. However, it is a missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle that gives us the strategy we should adopt in terms of contact removal.

The hero isn't a policymaker, scientists, academic and it's certainly not me.

It is Omicron [Our Cinderella]!

It would be an incredible irony if next Christmas, we are saved from Coronavirus, by a Coronavirus itself.

...And everyone lived happily every after!

The End

?

(We'll definitely want to avoid an en cour!)