The following study by scientists from Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute and Lev Gromashevsky Institute of Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases of the NAMS of Ukraine reported that the new wave of COVID-19, which was the Omicron variant, was spreading rapidly in the world and moving towards the Eastern region of Europe, including Ukraine.
Given the latest data on the rapid growth of cases in Western Europe and the United States (as of December 29, 2021: Great Britain - 183,037, France - 208,099, Spain - 100,760, Italy - 98,030, USA - 465,670 cases), we can assume that Omicron is spreading faster than Delta. However, the number of daily deaths in these countries has decreased significantly (57, 184, 78, 136, and 1777 cases, respectively). It suggests that Ukraine will experience the next wave of COVID-19, together with clinical manifestations of the disease, more smoothly than the previous ones.
Analyzing the previous wave of the disease, scientists indicate that the highest level of the weekly smoothed curve of new cases caused by Delta-strain occurred in Ukraine on 27.10.2021-2.11.2021 and reached 23,333 people. In total, about 509 thousand people were ill those days. When the vaccination rate reached 20.2% (November 15, 2021), the incidence wave decreased, while at the end of December 2021, the average number of new infections decreased to 4.5 thousand cases per day. Currently, 31.2% of Ukrainians are fully vaccinated with two doses. Such a downtrend implies a further improvement during the winter holidays to show its minimum during the first decade of January 2022 at the level of 3-5 thousand new infected people per day.
At the same time, the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and H3N2 and B influenza viruses has started spreading around Ukraine. It will affect the incidence rate in the next wave and require differential diagnosis of COVID-19 and influenza. To test this hypothesis, the scientists made a long-term forecast (100 days ahead) based on a neural network of the "direct perceptron" type. The forecast results indicate that during the second decade of January 2022, the next wave of morbidity caused by a variant of the Omicron variant is likely to begin. This wave will peak in mid-February 2022 at 23-25 thousand infected people per day. Then it will gradually decline in March - April 2022. However, one should keep in mind that the data on official morbidity and mortality largely depends on the number of laboratory diagnostics. At the same time, the duration of the next wave relies on further vaccination and anti-epidemic measures.