No - not April Fools. I promise.
The weekend slump pushes that 1-million-date back - sometimes by months. But then the mid-week bump pulls it forward again:
And while the trends are still headed down, it appears they're starting to level off:
Finally, the Omicron BA.2 variant has become the big boy on the block, but now, here comes Omicron XE, which is some kind of new thing that's grown out of a combination of two old things, and "supersedes" versions XA thru XD or some-fuckin'-thing.
New Omicron variant XE found in UK but ‘too soon to say’ how contagious it is
Hundreds of cases of ‘XE’ have been detected in England but experts still investigating level of risk
A new Covid variant has been found in the UK but experts say it’s too soon to know if it is more transmissible than previous strains.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSCA) said it was studying XE - a mutation of the BA.1 and BA.2 Omicron strains, referred to as a "recombinant".
The body cautioned though that "as this estimate has not remained consistent as new data have been added, it cannot yet be interpreted as an estimate of growth advantage for the recombinant."
"Numbers were too small for the XE recombinant to be analysed by region," the UKHSCA said.
Professor Susan Hopkins, the UKHSA's chief medical advisor transition lead, said that recombinant variants are not uncommon and usually die off "relatively quickly".
“This particular recombinant, XE, has shown a variable growth rate and we cannot yet confirm whether it has a true growth advantage," Ms Hopkins told The Sun.
“So far there is not enough evidence to draw conclusions about transmissibility, severity or vaccine effectiveness.”
There's more - but it doesn't get any clearer or easier to understand.
the more we learn,
the more we realize
how little we know
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