Short-term Projections based on Early Omicron Variant Dynamics in England
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Abstract
Throughout the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the worldwide transmission and replication of SARS-COV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19 disease, has resulted in the opportunity for multiple mutations to occur that may alter the virus transmission characteristics, the effectiveness of vaccines and the severity of disease upon infection. The Omicron variant (B.1.1.529) was first reported to the WHO by South Africa on 24 November 2021 and was declared a variant of concern by the WHO on 26 November 2021. The variant was first detected in the UK on 27 November 2021 and has since been reported in a number of countries globally where it is frequently associated with rapid increase in cases. Here we present analyses of UK data showing the earliest signatures of the Omicron variant and mathematical modelling that uses the UK data to simulate the potential impact of this variant in the UK. In order to account for the uncertainty in transmission advantage, vaccine escape and severity at the time of writing, we carry out a sensitivity analysis to assess the impact of these variant characteristics on future risk.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2021.12.30.21268307: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:Despite these caveats, our projections show that Omicron, due to its rapid growth, can generate levels of infection that could disrupt many services and levels of hospital admissions that will place a severe burden on the health services. Determining the optimal control policy is highly dependent on the objective, but several general …
SciScore for 10.1101/2021.12.30.21268307: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:Despite these caveats, our projections show that Omicron, due to its rapid growth, can generate levels of infection that could disrupt many services and levels of hospital admissions that will place a severe burden on the health services. Determining the optimal control policy is highly dependent on the objective, but several general conclusions can be drawn. First, strong controls enacted early bring the greatest reduction in infections, hospital admissions and deaths during the first wave of Omicron. Second, small initial waves lead to larger exit waves, with exit waves of deaths and hospital admission relatively larger than the exit wave of infection due to changes in the age-distribution of infection. However, such later exit waves, which tend to peak in April 2022, provide the opportunity to learn more about the Omicron variant and to instigate specific controls.
Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
Results from rtransparent:- Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- No protocol registration statement was detected.
Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.
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