Omicron appears to take a swifter, sharper course than its predecessors, and cases tend to rise within a population for about a month, then fall back down just as quickly.
The daily COVID-19 cases in South Africa began to decline in late December, roughly one month after scientists first spotted Omicron there. In the last week, the number of carbon dioxide cases in the United Kingdom has fallen from around 181,000 to 156,000 per day.
The US could be headed for a similar trajectory according to new models.
"It's possible that we could see a rapid fall just as much as we've seen a rapid rise," said David Dowdy, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
According to projections from the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, daily coronaviruses infections may have peaked on January 6. The model assumes that Omicron is more transmissible than Delta, but results in less severe disease.
The models predict that Omicron will drive up COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths in the US through the end of January. The model predicts that COVID-19 deaths will peak on January 28.
Omicron's rise and fall could be even more dramatic on the local level, though many cities and states haven't seen the worst of their outbreak yet.
The West Coast is just taking off, and what we're seeing on a national level is a smoothing over of all of these local effects. The South is taking off. There are more places where it's taking off than where it's peaking, so you're going to see these cases continue to rise.
Winter weather and gatherings may have been the reason for Omicron's rapid rise.
A student arrives for school on January 12, 2022, in Chicago, Illinois.
Scott Olson is a photographer.
Omicron may be close to reaching that point when a highly transmissible virus tears through a population until it runs out of people to spread it to. The US reported its highest-ever number of daily cases on Monday at more than 1.5 million. During the last peak in January 2021, there were nearly five times as many daily cases.
There are other explanations for why Omicron cases took off so quickly. He said that the winter months facilitate the spread of respiratory viruses and that more people are congregating indoors this winter than last.
"It's not just about the transmissibility of the virus, it's also about other things as well," he said. Last winter, schools were closed, you couldn't go into a restaurant at full capacity, and you couldn't go to an indoor gathering of more than 50 people. All of our schools are open, and you can easily go to a concert, a full restaurant, or both. If you had this behavior last year, you could have seen a rapid rise.
There's a shorter window of time between infections with Omicron. A recent study from Norway found that Omicron symptoms usually appear around three days after exposure, whereas Delta symptoms usually take four to five days to develop.
It may be shorter by a day, but when you're talking about how long it takes to double your numbers, a day makes a big difference.
Omicron will have spread a lot of disease to the US by the end of the wave.
People wait in line as city workers give out take- home tests.
Spencer Platt is a photographer.
Many Americans will get sick if Omicron cases fall quickly.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said during a virtual chat with the Center for Strategic and International Studies Commission that Omicron will find just about everyone.
Fauci said that people who have been vaccine and boosted would get exposed. Some of them will get infections but will probably not have to go to the hospital or die.
Dowdy is a bit more positive. He said that the current Omicron wave will likely affect a few people, but not the majority of US residents.
He said that the virus was burning through certain networks of people who were having more contact with each other. It doesn't have other places to go once it makes it through those networks.
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