Their projection shows that the B.1.1.7 variant will become the dominant variant in March. But interestingly... there's no fourth wave. Cases simply level out:
https://t.co/tDce0MwO61
I've seen many news articles cite that "the UK variant could be the dominant strain by March". This is emphasized by @CDCDirector.
While this will likely to be the case, this should not be an automatic cause for concern. Cases could still remain contained.
Here's how: 🧵
Their projection shows that the B.1.1.7 variant will become the dominant variant in March. But interestingly... there's no fourth wave. Cases simply level out:
https://t.co/tDce0MwO61
Let's look at UK and South Africa, where cases have been falling for the past month, in unison with the US (albeit with tougher restrictions):
If overall prevalence drops during the studied time period, the true doubling time of the variant is actually much longer 10 days.
Day 0: 10 variant / 100 cases -> 10% variant
Day 10: 15 variant / 75 cases -> 20% variant
Day 20: 20 variant / 50 cases -> 40% variant
1) Proportion of variant doubles every 10 days
2) Doubling time of variant is actually 20 days
3) Total cases still drop by 50%
It has the consequence of instilling fear in the public, who are much more likely to misinterpret it as "there will be another bad wave".
1) Cases and hospitalizations have fallen by more than half in the past month (and still falling)
2) We have administered the vaccine to 40M+ people, with 1M new vaccinations per day
But I'm baffled to see such a high level of confidence from the public health community that a fourth wave will happen.
