Quote:
Originally Posted by biguc
I wouldn't make one sweeping generalization about 26 countries, each with its own Covid strategy.
Many European countries are experiencing Omicron peaks higher and sharper than the US experienced. This shouldn't happen if they were successfully flattening the curve and, therefore, prolonging the wave, as you suggest.
The US and UK have strikingly similar Omicron curves. The US just lagged behind the UK. This doesn't say anything about their comparative policies, just that Omicron caught sooner in the UK.
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The curves seem different to me.
In the U.S., cases seem to have peaked around January 14. Cases have steadily declined since then.
In the UK, cases peaked earlier - around January 2. However, the period of steep decline only lasted through to around January 17th or so. Cases have continued to fall, but very gradually. Thus even though the UK peaked almost two weeks earlier, it has a higher number of cases per 100,000 (122 vs 90).
If you compare the places first hit by COVID in the U.S. to the UK, it's even starker.
NYC - 33 per 100,000
DC - 35 per 100,000
Baltimore - 17 per 100,000
Cleveland - 16 per 100,000
London - varies by area, but seems in the range of 130 per 100,000. Cases actually seem to be rising slightly in a lot of subsections of London as well.
Differences in testing regimes could explain part of this of course - maybe the UK just tests more than the U.S., and thus catches more asymptomatic cases. However, one wouldn't have expected a big change in testing over the course of the last several weeks.