New data has driven new recommendations on when to wear a mask. This will have implications for both businesses and individuals.

Late last week there were several news stories expressing concern that BA.2 should be considered a variant of concern

Cases in North America continue to fall at a fairly rapid pace but are still at levels higher than any other time in the epidemic.

Last week, it looked like some areas were starting to see the crest of the omicron wave, this week, the peaks have been confirmed.

Looking at the current epidemiology of omicron, it is responsible for over 98% of cases in the United States.

Omicron is extremely infectious, maybe even more than we thought, the data supports relative infectiousness compared to Delta at 2 or 3 times.

This week saw the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention own up to a very major error in their assessment of the spread of omicron.

In about 2 weeks omicron has gone from barely showing up in surveillance to being the dominant variant in circulation.

While there were many data anomalies due to the Thanksgiving holiday, the overall trend has been just very lightly upward.

The very first analyses of vaccine efficacy against omicron have started to come in from both Pfizer and Moderna.