So I read an article that Omicron is one of the most contagious virus to exist, behind measles.
But I also read that while measles has a higher R0 (15 for measles vs 6 for omicron), that omicron incubates and spreads faster.
The example I read is that it takes 12 days for measles to spread. So at day 12 you have 15 new people infected, the original person spreads it to 15 new people over 12 days. Omicron supposedly takes 4 days to spread to new people.
So on day 4 you’ve got 6 new infections (since the patient zero has infected 6 new people), on day 8 you’ve got 36 additional infections as each of the 6 patients from day 4 have now infected 6 people. then on day 12 you’ve got 216 new infections. Which means Omicron would spread far far faster than measles.
Does anyone know for sure? I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of a disease spreading this fast. Omicron was discovered in mid November, now in early January its infecting endless millions of people a day.