The first cases of the Omicron variant just appeared in Ithaca. It only took 2 weeks to get here from South Africa.
Dec 18 Update: Omicron spreads crazy fast. In one week, local cases went from 466 to 2045 (about 2% of the population). 100% of recent PCR tests at Cornell were Omicron; 41% in the rest of the county. The peak in the chart below is more than twice as high now.
Cornell went to Code Red for the first time today: it’s their highest level of response. In-person exams and all social events are canceled.
There is also a global peak going on, but not as intense:
Oddly, Covid-19 has settled into a fairly regular sine wave, with peaks 3 times a year. I have no idea what would cause that.
This fall I have been visiting neighboring counties, looking for a house to buy and rehab. It’s a very different world there. They have have about 4x the number of Covid cases and deaths, but almost nobody cares. One realtor simply didn’t believe me when I said that 400 people had already died from Covid in her county, and 50 were in the hospital. Now it’s 446 and 77. Face masks are rare, inside or out.
That was Broome County. Their website has better charts than here. Mostly it’s younger people getting sick these days:
But older people have been dying:
The 1918 flu pandemic infected about 1/3 of all humans, over the course of 2 years. That one was most lethal for people in their 20s.
We’ll still have to see how this one proceeds. Not over yet. It’s jumping into white tail deer, mice, cats, other species. Then bouncing back as variants, or making new forms entirely inside people.
Dennis Kolva
Programming Director
TurtleSoft.com
