Covid-19: Is the Omicron variant “stagnating or decreasing” wherever it has appeared?

He calls for laissez-faire in the face of Omicron. A fervent opponent of vaccination, health restrictions and the wearing of masks, Florian Philippot once again believes that, faced with Covid-19, the best strategy would be inaction. Massive argument of the president of the party Les Patriotes: he affirms this Tuesday, January 4 on Twitter that “everywhere in the world, Omicron is already stagnating or decreasing”. What is it really?

This phenomenon is not visible in any Western country, as shown in the graph below from official data collected by the Our World in Data site. As a reminder, this variant initially detected in southern Africa is currently in the majority in several countries. Among them, the United Kingdom. A strategic country from the point of view of France which, since the arrival of this variant, observes this neighbor in order to know what to expect. “The most important and reliable recoil we have is the English recoil”, thus underlined on December 29 the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, before the Commission of Laws of the National Assembly.

However, very clearly, the contaminations curve continues to explode across the Channel. If the cases marked a break of a few days during the Christmas and New Year celebrations, these are simply due to a stoppage of services during the festivities. For the rest, we note that the contaminations continue their crazy races started since mid-December, reaching a peak never reached in the country.

A finding perfectly similar to that observed in Denmark, where the variant represents 80% of new contaminations, and in the United States, where Omicron became the majority from December 21. A phenomenon which is not only linked to the number of tests carried out by the population in anticipation of private meetings. In fact, the positivity of the tests is also climbing in these three countries.

As for Germany, if it did indeed experience a situation of decline between the end of November and the end of December, this phenomenon is not linked to Omicron, but to the end of the wave of contaminations with the Delta variant. The new, more contagious mutation did not affect the country as quickly as France. That said, since December 28, our neighbor from across the Rhine has also experienced an upsurge in cases.

In fact, only South Africa is experiencing a real decrease in the number of its cases. Since December 18, the contaminations curve has fallen in this country which was the first to warn about this new variant. So on December 31, the authorities estimated that the peak of the fourth wave had passed.

However, it did not happen naturally. As proof, in the United Kingdom, where Omicron became dominant barely two weeks later, contamination has not declined. In reality, this drop can be explained by a difference in temperatures, but also by the many restrictions put in place in the country, with a curfew in some provinces and the ban on the sale of alcohol after 11 p.m. Gatherings were also limited to 1,000 people indoors and 2,000 outdoors.

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