Expert: Omicron may be dominant in CR by January – or even during Xmas
To date only a small number of cases of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 have been confirmed in the Czech Republic. However, an independent group of experts known as MeSES believe Omicron is spreading by community transmission in the country – and may have already infected hundreds. I spoke to the group’s Jan Kulveit, an expert on mathematical modeling of pandemics.
“To tell if something is Omicron you need to do a so-called discrimination PCR, and this is done only on a fraction of positive samples.
“So that’s one reason. The second is that Omicron is spreading fast in other European countries.
“For example, in Denmark the Omicron doubling time is close to two days – two to three days – so we believe this is similar in the Czech Republic.
“That means basically that if there is a delay between when someone gets infected and when the presence of the variant is confirmed there is a delay.
“And in the delay Omicron has already grown multiple times.
“Also part of the cases are completely undetected, because in some regions of the country PCR capacity is basically up to its limits.
“So if you multiply these factors you will reach a number that is much higher than the number of cases that are reported and confirmed.”
How do you feel the authorities are dealing with the situation? Are they awake to the dangers?
“Frankly it doesn’t look like that.
“It seems that some people from the authorities believe this is some sort of a problem they can deal with in January. This is too late.
“Also if the response is driven by how many people are in hospitals it’s really, really late.
“So I’m not too confident, but maybe I’m mistaken and behind the scenes more preparation is going on.”
What’s the most likely scenario here in, for example, one month from today, with regard to the spread of Omicron?
“I’m a bit hesitant to answer, because there are actually a range of scenarios and there is a lot of uncertainty.
“So it’s difficult to tell what’s the most likely, because there are multiple scenarios which are all reasonably likely.
“But the thing which is probably like some sort of median scenario – so half of the scenarios are better, half are worse – is something like Omicron being the dominant strain in early January, maybe the first week in January, maybe even during Christmas.
“And also a lot of the cases going unnoticed during the holiday period, because people will not get tested.
“So the situation may superficially look better than it is.
“And if kids return to school, I would expect the epidemic to grow really fast in that age cohort.
“Yes, I expect we will see a lot of cases in January.”
