We Know Enough About Omicron to Know That We’re in Trouble
More data will soon be coming in. But how much do they really matter?
Updated at 12:00 p.m. ET on December 17, 2021
A lot has changed for Omicron in just two weeks. At December’s onset, the variant was barely present in Europe, showing up in 1 to 2 percent of COVID cases. Now it’s accounting for 72 percent of new cases in London, where everybody seems to know somebody with COVID. In the U.K. and Denmark, Omicron case numbers are doubling every other day. The same exponential growth is happening—or will happen—in the United States too, just in time for the holidays.
What is now quite certain: A big Omicron wave is coming, on top of an already substantial Delta wave. There are still some unknowns about the variant, such as exactly how severe these cases will be. But we know enough about
