COVID-19 Outbreak Information Updates (Reboot) [over 150.000,000 US cases (est.), 6,422,520 US hospitilizations, 1,148,691 US deaths.]

Saint_Ward said
Europe's sudden spike is kind of weird. The only time I've seen something like this is Michigan this fall/winter when Delta was fading, and Omicron came roaring.

We've usually enjoyed 1-3 months troughs. This was like a couple days.

But France and Spain haven't followed suit.

Example of US.

https://www.beckershospitalreview.c...urope-s-uptick-in-covid-19-cases-5-notes.html
Saw that only 44% of Americans are boosted. Of course, there is some error with those numbers, since a lot of people were counted as second doses, instead of boosters.

I think it's probably a combination of multiple things: BA.2 variant, relaxing restrictions, vaccine coverage (including potential waning effects), and possibly reinfections (where they're being counted).

So to take the UK:

The BA.2 variant is now dominant.
It varies slightly between England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, but we've ended or are ending pretty much all legal health measures (e.g. in England, there's no longer a legal requirement to self-isolate, it's just a guideline now), no masking requirements except in healthcare settings, and we're ending free lateral flow tests at the end of the month (which reminds me, I need to order more now... except I can't because there's none available, people stocking up in advance).
Booster uptake stalled (went from 0 to 60% of 12+population from October to January, only ~7% more since then).
We still haven't started vaccinating 5-11 year olds (it's supposedly going to be offered on an optional non-urgent basis from next month).
Recorded reinfections appear to be around 10% of cases.
Worth noting that the ONS survey indicates 98.4% of adults in England have antibodies (whether from vaccination or prior infection), and around 94% of 12-15 year olds and 74% of 8-11 year olds do too.

It'll be different combinations of those factors in different countries, but I'm not at all surprised to see the beginnings of another wave here. We couldn't do much more to encourage it. Hopefully it won't hit too hard.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong is demonstrating what happens if you don't have sufficient vaccination levels in your elderly population (click through for thread):