Omicron Severity, Absenteeism, Death Lag

Fill your Fridge, Bathtub, and Fuel Tank

Per Gabriel Hebert-Mild, retweeted and brought to me by Dan Sirotkin’s retweet:

You can see pretty easily that perhaps, the proper lags for ICU and deaths are 14 days and 21 days, respectively. Please tell me again how this is “mild” or different from the past waves.

My model does not track ICU, only general hospitalizations. I am not going to change my model where death lag is 14 days, because at this point it will not really matter when we reach March, and I do not want to back-change it now that it is being tested for predictions and is public.

So Bloomberg says 5 million people were absent from work. Now look at my model

My model says about 10 million of all Americans (including housewives, retired etc) were supposed to be quarantined. As about only half of them are employed, my model also is close to this number of 5 million quarantined. My model only counts actual sick people taking time off work (all sick people who got sick in the last 10 days), not “close contacts”.

Pretty close, huh?

Deaths

In light of the graph that began this article, it is possible, again, that I goofed slightly and that deaths are lagging by 3 weeks instead of two, as I assumed.

• In the final count, it will not really matter

• In the next couple of weeks deaths may seem a bit below predictions

• If the deaths are lagging by three weeks and not two, the Case Fatality Rate of Omicron is much higher than it seemed compared to two week lag, due to constantly rising cases.

Again, I will NOT change my predictions, the predictions are set in stone and I want to see how the original prediction plays out. If I am wrong, I want this to be apparent and if I am right, I want it to be apparent also. If I keep changing my model, the only apparent thing will be that I changed it to suit recent developments. So I will NOT adjust my predictions, ever, which were posted as images several times.

South Africa

Cases in South Africa peaked on Dec 18. Deaths are still going up. South Africa also reported 476 “forgotten” deaths, that they mentioned, but never added to Worldometer. I am now wondering if “Omicron is mild” messaging from SA is at least partly explained by their disappointment about the travel ban?

Relevant Predictions

The quarantine predictions seem to be kind of on target, so…

My model predicts the maximum of 64,000,000 Americans to be quarantined based on 10 days after diagnosis, as of Jan 22, meaning that about 30,000,000 workers will be off work.

It sounds totally crazy and I hope that it does not happen, but if it does, I hope that your fridge is full. Make sure you have a bathtub full of water also, extra warm blankets to stay warm just in case, and keep your fuel tank filled.

Please do NOT slip on ice, do NOT drive dangerously, eat only safe foods that will not give you food poisoning. Do not allow your loved ones to beat you up.