How dangerous is omicron and how effective are vaccinations?

  1. Igor Nesteruk
  2. Oleksii Rodionov

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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.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2022.01.27.22269909: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Ethicsnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    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: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    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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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2022.01.27.22269909v1 on medRxiv