Canada’s testing and data tracking are both so laughably inadequate, we’re flying blind into the future. Denmark is probably as good an early warning system as we’re likely to get. Whatever happens in Denmark this week will likely happen about a week later in Canada.
So here's today's data from Denmark, which foreshadows what we can expect soon:
https://files.ssi.dk/covid19/omikron/statusrapport/rapport-omikronvarianten-31122021-ct18
As of today, Denmark has 54,000 confirmed Omicron cases. There were a total of roughly 125,000 inferred Omicron cases by December 28th. (In other words, roughly 2.5 percent of the Danish population had had an Omicron infection long enough to get tested for it by December 28th.)
Currently less than 1 person per million is in the ICU with Omicron in Denmark, and only 1 person in 50,000 is in hospital with Omicron. (We don’t know what percentage of those in hospital with Omicron came to hospital for some other reason and were Omicron-positive on an admission-screening test. In Britain that number is roughly 80%, so this could be important information.) There’s still no indication that anyone has died of Omicron in Denmark so far:
Fingers crossed this pattern of low hospitalizations continues.
With a three-day doubling time we can guess that 1 million Danes - roughly 20% of the population - will become infected with Omicron today, although that won’t show up in testing till this time next week. By this time next week, virtually everyone in Denmark will likely have been infected, which will be confirmed in testing roughly two weeks from today.
Canada is roughly a week behind Denmark, so we should hit full saturation two weeks from today, with testing confirming that three weeks from today.
In this most recent report, 17.7% of Omicron cases were in the booster vaccinated, which is actually good news for the booster-vaccinated because roughly half of Denmark is booster vaccinated.
That said, if you haven’t already had your booster shot, there’s little point in getting booster vaccinated now because you will likely catch Omicron before a booster can have any significant impact on your immunity.
Fully vaccinated individuals made up 72% of Omicron cases, so full vaccination clearly provides almost no protection against infection with Omicron, something to think about before visiting anyone old and frail, or visiting anyone with serious co-morbidities. Though I suspect everyone will get Omicron before too long, I also have to imagine you’ll feel better knowing you were not the one who infected Grandma or Grandpa.
If you are old and frail and live with other people, you may be best served by not becoming a hermit. We have to suspect that Omicron is like other variants of COVID in that the seriousness of infection is dose-dependent. If you catch Omicron at the grocery store you’ll probably get a very small dose of the virus, which will be much easier for your body to fight off, but which will still give you natural immunity to Omicron. If you catch Omicron from someone you live with, you will likely get a higher dose, and for an extended period of time, which greatly increases the odds that Omicron could overwhelm your immune system.
If you are old and frail and live alone, becoming a hermit for the next month may enable you to avoid whatever overcrowding Omicron creates in hospitals.
Roughly a month from today, we can expect that pretty much the entire population of North America will have recent natural immunity to COVID. There’s a good chance by then we will be starting to talk about the COVID pandemic in the past tense. Something to think about as you are making your preparations for 2022: Happy New Year!