Estimating the severity of COVID-19 Omicron Variant in USA, India, Brazil, France, Germany and UK

Abstract: This work evaluates the severity of COVID-19 Omicron variant in terms of the case-fatality-rates (CFR) with respective uncertainty intervals via a simultaneous fitting of confirmed cases and deaths in the USA, India, Brazil, France, Germany and United Kingdom. The CFRs were calculated combining Monte Carlo simulations and analytical methods based on Gompertz functions under the framework of the Least Square Method and assuming that the deaths can be described by a convolution of the confirmed cases with a common gamma function to describe the case to death period. Linear backgrounds both for cases and deaths were included in the fitting to account for the contributions from other strains within the Omicron peaks. The fitting included 125 and 113 epidemiological weeks, for cases and deaths, respectively, and 64 parameters, resulting in a chi^2 of 176.5 for 174 degrees of freedom (p = 0.434). The CFRs with 95% confidence intervals for USA, India, Brazil, France, Germany and United Kingdom were 0.295 (0.154-0.436)%, 0.232 (0.134-0.331)%, 0.49 (0.27-0.71)%, 0.056 (0.028-0.084)%, 0.129 (0.074-0.184)% and 0.168 (0.107-0.229)%, respectively. The case to death period was satisfactorily described by a common gamma function with mean of 15.71 +/- 0.55 days and coefficient of variation of 0.354 +/- 0.070. The proposed calculations provided accurate and reliable information about the respective CFRs and the case to death period, the latter being consistent with previous estimates for the symptom onset to death made in the early stages of the pandemic. The CFRs thus obtained are considerably lower than previous measurements available in the literature, suggesting that the latter may have been overestimated, as the probability of deaths from other strains of the virus under the generally prominent Omicron peak, here accounted for in terms of linear backgrounds, was not considered.