Transmission rate doesn’t really seem like the important variable unless you care about the effect on mortality. If your goal is to reduce transmission, then the important statistic is overall transmission. If (as seems likely with Omicron), ~100% of the population is going to get it eventually, then trying to reduce the speed at which people get it (the transmission rate) only matters if that effects mortality.
Or to put it another way, if you have a disease where hospitalization doesn’t effect mortality (or a sane world where hospitals can scale up with “only” a year and a half of lead time), and a disease so transmissable that everyone is going to get it, then the transmission rate hardly matters since x% of people dying now vs x% of people dying over the next few months isn’t a big difference.
Transmission rate doesn’t really seem like the important variable unless you care about the effect on mortality. If your goal is to reduce transmission, then the important statistic is overall transmission. If (as seems likely with Omicron), ~100% of the population is going to get it eventually, then trying to reduce the speed at which people get it (the transmission rate) only matters if that effects mortality.
Or to put it another way, if you have a disease where hospitalization doesn’t effect mortality (or a sane world where hospitals can scale up with “only” a year and a half of lead time), and a disease so transmissable that everyone is going to get it, then the transmission rate hardly matters since x% of people dying now vs x% of people dying over the next few months isn’t a big difference.
It is not possible that 100% will get it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compartmental_models_in_epidemiology
it is possible that over 50% will get it.
https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1469723185084084225?s=20
Please check the calculation part. I wish the health system would not stress out by the omicron.