The COVID-19 Omicron wave in the framework of a new mathematical modeling in few European countriesand the right time for lifting restrictions

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-1436547/v1

Abstract

The COVID-19 Omicron wave in Romania, Bulgaria and Germany is considered within a 

new approach [6] for modeling  Epidemics and a short comparison is made of similar application

to few strongly affected countries in the beginning of 2022: the USA, the UK and France.

The main novelty of that approach is the tracking of successive generations of infected people

instead of treating in time the evolution of several large compartments within which the total

population is partitioned (susceptible, infected, recovered,...). Because of the much strongest

transmission of Omicron, its wave starts to dominate the Pandemic after some moment in time,

and then the simplest version of the model [6] can be employed (without consecutive waves,

no incoming from outside infected individuals e.t.c.) The daily observed new infection cases are

described in a reasonable way after normalization. The position of the calculated Pandemic peaks in

time in Romania and Bulgaria indicates a transition from the second to to the third generation of infected people. For comparison, in the USA, UK and France the transition is from the third to the fourth generation.

The parameters derived by reproducing the data in the three countries considered are consistent with

those derived earlier for the USA, the UK and France (i.e. infection and recovery rates). Due to the high contagiousness of Omicron, a very large part of the population will be gone through a contact with the

virus in a relatively small period of time (3-4 months). This part is comparable to the total number of

infections which occurred for two years, since the beginning of the Pandemic by end of 2019.

Therefore, one may hope that some temporary acquired immunity will be reached. Adding the effects of vaccination, one may hope with moderate optimism that it will be possible to control/stop the COVID-19 Pandemic soon. However, lifting restrictions should be done carefully and country specifically, and of course

at the right time, as illustrated by the examples of the UK and Germany.


The present work represents exclusively  a mathematical modeling of the Pandemic and does not deal with any other aspect of health, social or economic character as well with throwing away any possibility for unexpected developments. Yet we hope that the present results will be of some help.


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