(The situation in Singapore, HK is similar - see past posts)
Some data for SK.
Vaccines: About 87% fully vaccinated, About 60% boosted.
Type of vaccines: Initially mostly AZ (= Covidshield), recent few months about ~50% Pfizer, ~25% Moderna ~25% AZ and some J&J etc.
SUTRA computed graph (and actual numbers):
Some conclusions, thoughts and learnings for India and US.
- Note that they have done quite well till the Omicron wave. For almost two years, they mainly did by aggressively isolating infections. Since January however, the numbers have blown up due to Omicron. (I mentioned before - more of 'Kerala model' (instead of 'UP model') so to speak).
- Analysis using SUTRA model we see: Until beginning of January this year, ρ was about .1. Reach of the pandemic was ~10% only or in other words the country had managed to contain the pandemic to within 10% of population. (For India this number on average 80-90% before Omicron).
- One can say that this is due to vaccinating (~87% of population fully vaccinated) Vaccination reduces reach. However, it is also known that vaccination gives immunity to only about 60% people against delta, which translates to to about ~50% population becoming immune.
- So if "controls" were similar to India, one would have expected ρ to be about .5 but thanks to the strict control it was .1. Omicron passed the vaccine immunity in a major way. ρ from data now , in middle of January reached .75 (75% of the population). The phase is still *not* stable - drifting quite a bit so trajectory may even be higher than plotted above.
- In hindsight, a "controlled expansion of reach" over past two years would have served South Korea better. (The details/technical about this obviously some what complicated but is given in IITK's study about "UP Model" which UP used).
- Singapore situation is somewhat similar - Their reach was ~13% in September when delta came and increased it to ~22%. Omicron has taken it to ~78% at present.
(There are collection of a few very nice papers in Nature which gives more information about effects of vaccines and validates, these conclusions too) (https://www.nature.com/nature/volumes/602/issues/7898).
****
In India's case unless there is a completely new variant which by-passes even the natural immunity in a major way we are not going to see any further peak. (Strongly disagree with some news paper headlines citing "IIT K study)
****
Strict / aggressive isolation methods ( like travel restrictions, lock downs, closing foreign flights etc) can buy some time, and slow the spread but in practice this "Zero Covid Strategy" (as applied by NZ, China etc) does not seem to work. Till we get the whole world vaccinated or wipe the pandemic - the variant with high beta will not be stopped by lockdowns alone.
****
For India the recommendations are - keep aggressive vaccination campaign, invest in good health care to reduce deaths, Monitor the situation and start opening up. (trust in scientists - when and where apply local control measures from the available data rather than strict lock downs etc).
I remain quite optimistic. Especially as many states are listening and trusting scientists.
