Karim, S. S. A., & Karim, Q. A. (2021). Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variant: A new chapter in the COVID-19 pandemic. The Lancet, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)02758-6

Dolgin, E. (2021). Omicron is supercharging the COVID vaccine booster debate. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-03592-2

Lauring, A. S., Tenforde, M. W., Chappell, J. D., Gaglani, M., Ginde, A. A., McNeal, T., Ghamande, S., Douin, D. J., Talbot, H. K., Casey, J. D., Mohr, N. M., Zepeski, A., Shapiro, N. I., Gibbs, K. W., Files, D. C., Hager, D. N., Shehu, A., Prekker, M. E., Erickson, H. L., … Self, W. H. (2022). Clinical severity of, and effectiveness of mRNA vaccines against, covid-19 from omicron, delta, and alpha SARS-CoV-2 variants in the United States: Prospective observational study. BMJ, 376, e069761. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2021-069761

Torjesen, I. (2021). Covid-19: Omicron may be more transmissible than other variants and partly resistant to existing vaccines, scientists fear. BMJ, 375, n2943. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n2943

Sandra Ciesek. (2021, December 8). Unsere ersten Daten zur Neutralisation von Omicron versus Delta sind fertig: 2x Biontech, 2x Moderna, 1xAZ/1x Biontech nach 6 Monaten 0% Neutralisation bei Omicron, auch 3x Biontech 3 Monate nach Booster nur 25% NT versus 95% bei Delta. Bis zu 37fache Reduktion Delta vs. Omicron https://t.co/w0gHww26sg [Tweet]. @CiesekSandra. https://twitter.com/CiesekSandra/status/1468465347519041539

Smith, L., Potts, H., Amlôt, R., Fear, N. T., Michie, S., & Rubin, J. (2022). How has the emergence of the Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern influenced worry, perceived risk, and behaviour in the UK? A series of cross-sectional surveys. OSF Preprints. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/rpcu2

Karberg, S., & Friebe, R. (2022, January 18). Virologe Drosten im Interview: „Wie lange geht diese Quälerei noch weiter?“. https://plus.tagesspiegel.de/wissen/virologe-drosten-im-interview-wie-lange-geht-diese-qualerei-noch-weiter-361636.html

Meng, B., Abdullahi, A., Ferreira, I. A. T. M., Goonawardane, N., Saito, A., Kimura, I., Yamasoba, D., Gerber, P. P., Fatihi, S., Rathore, S., Zepeda, S. K., Papa, G., Kemp, S. A., Ikeda, T., Toyoda, M., Tan, T. S., Kuramochi, J., Mitsunaga, S., Ueno, T., … Gupta, R. K. (2022). Altered TMPRSS2 usage by SARS-CoV-2 Omicron impacts tropism and fusogenicity. Nature, 1–1. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04474-x

Hamblin, J. (2021, December 9). Perspective | Omicron won’t keep us from ending the pandemic. We’re doing that ourselves. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/12/09/omicron-coronavirus-individual-threat/

ReconfigBehSci. (2021, December 14). RT @thehowie: "...The vaccine provided 70 percent protection in fully vaccinated individuals against severe complications that would requir… [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1470749072160133128

How are new Covid cases impacting sport? (n.d.). BBC Sport. Retrieved December 23, 2021, from https://www.bbc.com/sport/59682938

ReconfigBehSci. (2021, December 14). RT @thehowie: BREAKING South Africa: 82% increase in cases, week over week. 34.9% positive rate. Record 7-day average. Not near platea… [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1470814593610047490

Dr Nisreen Alwan 🌻. (2021, December 23). We’re in unchartered territory. Https://t.co/O1GGcXpMll [Tweet]. @Dr2NisreenAlwan. https://twitter.com/Dr2NisreenAlwan/status/1474051397570248716

Kai Kupferschmidt. (2021, December 10). “the severity profile of Omicron cases must be interpreted along with an understanding of its capacity to re-infect (and infect the vaccinated)“ This is what I have been trying to explain the last few days. As usual @nataliexdean does it better (and in color)! [Tweet]. @kakape. https://twitter.com/kakape/status/1469270407995867139

Yaniv Erlich. (2021, December 8). Updated table of Omicron neuts studies with @Pfizer results (which did the worst job in terms of reporting raw data). Strong discrepancy between studies with live vs pseudo. Https://t.co/InQuWMAm4l [Tweet]. @erlichya. https://twitter.com/erlichya/status/1468580675007795204

ReconfigBehSci. (2021, December 12). RT @ryan_landay: > A new diverse genome has appeared within the B.1.1.529 lineage that has all of the shared mutations of B.1.1.529, some o… [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1470066521615605766

ReconfigBehSci. (2021, December 9). RT @RachelLavin: As Omicron reality dawns, consider investing in better masks: "....Tight-fitting FFP2 masks provide 75 times better pro… [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1474030898551087113

Campbell, D., Sabbagh, D., & Devlin, H. (2022, January 7). Military deployed at London hospitals due to Omicron staff shortages. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/07/military-deployed-at-london-hospitals-due-to-omicron-staff-shortages

ReconfigBehSci. (2021, November 26). RT @mvankerkhove: Following the meeting of the @WHO TAG-VE today, WHO classifies B.1.1.529 as a variant of concern named Omicron. We call… [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1464302372100976650

ReconfigBehSci. (2021, December 12). RT @EricTopol: If you think Prior Covid protects against Omicron (B.1.1.529), think again https://medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.08.21267491v1 and "Neutralizing antibo… [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1470434736304803845

ReconfigBehSci. (2021, November 26). vaccine equity has been a disaster, but I do wonder whether the exclusive focus on donations does the US/EU comparison justice. The EU allowed the export of huge numbers of EU produced doses at a time when the US did not (and EU itself was struggling to meet demand). [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1464255575416520749

ReconfigBehSci on Twitter: “RT @BNODesk: BREAKING: U.S. reports 716,714 new coronavirus cases, setting world record for cases in one day” / Twitter. (n.d.). Retrieved January 7, 2022, from https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1478987541332348933

Karan, A. (2022). We cannot afford to repeat these four pandemic mistakes. BMJ, 376, o631. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.o631

ReconfigBehSci. (2021, December 23). Risk of hospital stay 40% lower with Omicron than Delta, UK data suggests https://t.co/VupN8hY4qq [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1473916654421643266

ReconfigBehSci. (2021, November 26). maybe this is a good moment to remind people that makers of mRNA vaccines have been extensively prepping for the possibility of new variants. Biontech/Pfizer have given a timeline of 100 days to the delivery of a retooled version of their vaccine [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1464225264523747359

Kissane, E. (2021, December 23). We’re About to Lose Track of the Pandemic. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/12/were-about-to-lose-track-of-the-pandemic/621097/

ReconfigBehSci. (2021, December 11). RT @MackayIM: Booster access brought forward to slow spread of Omicron COVID-19 variant https://t.co/PukbPydylw [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1469633384511119364

Eric Topol. (2022, January 2). As the world turns.....vertical the Omicron signature (|) @OurWorldInData https://t.co/LOBiaiBapD [Tweet]. @EricTopol. https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1477433315896430592

ReconfigBehSci. (2021, December 13). RT @DrEricDing: 11) Omicron is doubling every 1.6 days in UK 🇬🇧 according to @DrWilliamKu’s figure. That’s way faster growth than in South… [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1470451594378502154

Prof. Christina Pagel. (2021, December 23). UKHSA surveillance report shows reinfections rising sharply as Omicron takes hold https://t.co/UGArY4sbOA [Tweet]. @chrischirp. https://twitter.com/chrischirp/status/1474041921249189896

Thomas, T., & Duncan, P. (2021, December 23). If Omicron is the dominant variant in UK, why is the number of confirmed cases so low? The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/23/if-omicron-is-the-dominant-variant-in-uk-why-is-the-number-of-confirmed-cases-so-low

ReconfigBehSci. (2021, December 13). Important update on the now withdrawn @BallouxFrancois tweet identifying hopeful turning of the corner in SA omicron data [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1470311016114364420

ReconfigBehSci. (2021, December 11). RT @DrEricDing: DOUBLING % in one day: The spike of probable #Omicron variant in Scotland🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 has critically surged—Now at 13.3%, up fro… [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1469596523222781954

ReconfigBehSci. (2021, December 8). RT @kallmemeg: NEW: @UKHSA Mini Omicron Update Omicron VOC-21NOV-01 (B.1.1.529) update on cases, S gene target failure and risk assessment… [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1468673329494216726

John Burn-Murdoch. (2021, November 25). Five quick tweets on the new variant B.1.1.529 Caveat first: Data here is very preliminary, so everything could change. Nonetheless, better safe than sorry. 1) Based on the data we have, this variant is out-competing others far faster than Beta and even Delta did 🚩🚩 https://t.co/R2Ac4e4N6s [Tweet]. @jburnmurdoch. https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1463956686075580421

CNN, I. K. (n.d.). Vaccine inequity and hesitancy made the Omicron variant more likely, scientists say. CNN. Retrieved December 23, 2021, from https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/28/world/omicron-coronavirus-variant-vaccine-inequity-intl-cmd/index.html

ReconfigBehSci. (2021, December 22). RT @chrischirp: Positivity rising steeply too—There are definitely many more people we aren’t catching https://t.co/4xDPwYQtrx [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1473695678610214927

ReconfigBehSci on Twitter: “RT @chrischirp: As well as Tom’s new one (B.1.1.529), C.1.2 seems to be spreading in S Africa—C.1.2 was the one with lots of worrying mut…” / Twitter. (n.d.). Retrieved December 23, 2021, from https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1463597407082532864

ReconfigBehSci. (2021, December 16). RT @MadsAlbertsen85: #Omicron update from Denmark. Omicron cases on the 12th of December adjusted up to 20.5% (+2%). Omicron is now having… [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1471516083819462670

ReconfigBehSci. (2021, December 11). RT @thehowie: BREAKING: Hospitalizations South Africa Hospitalizations⬆️67% week over week. Gauteng Province⬆️66%. GP⬆️1.6% from yesterd… [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1469685234149072897

ReconfigBehSci. (2021, December 9). a rather worrying development- a (local) newspaper “fact checking” the new German health minister simply by interviewing a virologist who happens to have a different view. There’s simply no established “fact” as to the severity of omicron in children at this point in time [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1469037817481334786

Trevor Bedford. (2021, December 11). We find that logistic growth of Omicron sequence fraction looks similar between the UK, the US and Germany with roughly 1% of sequenced cases in all three countries being Omicron on Dec 1. 3/10 https://t.co/De0t2xreU9 [Tweet]. @trvrb. https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1469784757261127685

Gollub, R. L. (2022). Brain changes after COVID revealed by imaging. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-00503-x

ReconfigBehSci. (2021, December 17). RT @EricTopol: No evidence that Omicron is less severe, new @imperialcollege study reports https://ft.com/content/020534b3-5a54-4517-9fd1-167a5db50786 https://t.co/5YYzJ6tVtc [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1472156681098469380

ReconfigBehSci. (2021, November 26). RT @HZiauddeen: 🧵 COVID-19 & B.1.1.529: A chance for govt & others to change their mind and their approach? While we are still gathering d… [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1464200877888184324

ReconfigBehSci. (2021, December 22). RT @chrishendel: We need increased targeted measures now to slow the spread of #Omicron by @DrSarahHal via @bmj_latest https://t.co/3Tx… [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1473987200509521925

Perspective | Even the best-case scenario with omicron will still be bad. (n.d.). Washington Post. Retrieved December 23, 2021, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/12/21/omicron-mild-cases-numbers/

Covid: Dutch go into Christmas lockdown over Omicron wave. (2021, December 18). BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59713503

Purpose of WGS in population epidemiology

1. Surveillance
2. Outbreak Investigation
3. Source attribution
4. Microbial population

Times, T. N. Y. (2020, March 3). Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html

Schlosser, F. (2021, November 29). Omicron—Import Risk. Covid-19 Mobility Project. https://www.covid-19-mobility.org/reports/importrisk_omicron/

Kai Kupferschmidt. (2021, December 1). @DirkBrockmann That percentage number tells you “how likely an infected passenger from South Africa or Botswana travels to each country and exits the airport there”. So: “0.9% in Germany means that out of 1000 such individuals, 9 are expected to have Germany as their final destination.” [Tweet]. @kakape. https://twitter.com/kakape/status/1466107478807097354

🇺🇦 Meaghan Kall. (2022, January 27). NEW: 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Vaccine effectiveness (symptomatic infection) data for BA.2 {Omicron’s more infectious sister} NO difference in VE between Omicron (BA.1) and BA.2 Possibly even higher VE for BA.2 but estimates overlap See full thread 🧵 from @freja_kirsebom https://t.co/bJ7uCn2cGV [Tweet]. @kallmemeg. https://twitter.com/kallmemeg/status/1486821549458001927

Dr Dominic Pimenta [@DrDomPimenta]. (2021, December 15). An illustration of communicating risk with “less severe” variants: [Thread] Assume Omicron is 4x more transmissible than Delta. [1] Assume Omicron leads to 1/3 less admissions than Delta. [Figure below] Assume 1 in 100 cases of Delta are admitted to hospital. Https://t.co/XtnVwoOrUo [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/DrDomPimenta/status/1471094002808242177

Pfizer and BioNTech Provide Update on Omicron Variant | Pfizer. (n.d.). Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-and-biontech-provide-update-omicron-variant

The Guardian. ‘We Can Prevail over Omicron. We Just Need to Use the Tools We Have’, 1 December 2021, sec. Opinion. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/01/we-can-prevail-over-omicron-use-tools-we-have.

Pérez-Then, E., Lucas, C., Monteiro, V. S., Miric, M., Brache, V., Cochon, L., Vogels, C. B. F., Cruz, E. D. la, Jorge, A., Santos, M. D. los, Leon, P., Breban, M. I., Billig, K., Yildirim, I., Pearson, C., Downing, R., Gagnon, E., Muyombwe, A., Razeq, J., … Iwasaki, A. (2021). Immunogenicity of heterologous BNT162b2 booster in fully vaccinated individuals with CoronaVac against SARS-CoV-2 variants Delta and Omicron: The Dominican Republic Experience (p. 2021.12.27.21268459). medRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.12.27.21268459

Prof. Christina Pagel. (2021, December 29). Omicron was dominant everywhere in England by Christmas https://t.co/x58pJi7VcD [Tweet]. @chrischirp. https://twitter.com/chrischirp/status/1476161382852796419

Pan-Hammarström lab. (2022, January 7). Our new study: Heterogeneous vaccination strategy with inactivated vaccine + mRNA booster elicits strong B and T cell response against the WT and VOC including Omicron @VirusesImmunity https://t.co/aBiN9anMBL [Tweet]. @panhammarstrom. https://twitter.com/panhammarstrom/status/1479449892410044419

Abu-Raddad, L. J., Chemaitelly, H., Ayoub, H. H., AlMukdad, S., Tang, P., Hasan, M. R., Coyle, P., Yassine, H. M., Al-Khatib, H. A., Smatti, M. K., Al-Kanaani, Z., Al-Kuwari, E., Jeremijenko, A., Kaleeckal, A. H., Latif, A. N., Shaik, R. M., Abdul-Rahim, H. F., Nasrallah, G. K., Al-Kuwari, M. G., … Bertollini, R. (2022). Effectiveness of BNT162b2 and mRNA-1273 COVID-19 boosters against SARS-CoV-2 Omicron (B.1.1.529) infection in Qatar (p. 2022.01.18.22269452). medRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.01.18.22269452

BNO/Medriva Newsroom [@medriva]. (2021, November 26). South Africa’s health minister says, based on a small sample of Omicron cases, the majority of hospital patients are unvaccinated: ‘It indicates that the vaccines are providing protection’ [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/medriva/status/1464327805836083201

Sample, I., & Walker, P. (2021, December 7). Scientists find ‘stealth’ version of Omicron that may be harder to track. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/07/scientists-find-stealth-version-of-omicron-not-identifiable-with-pcr-test-covid-variant

ReconfigBehSci. (2022, February 27). RT @theosanderson: BA.1 and BA.2 prevalence by region from ONS Community Infection survey https://t.co/BkBFpP9O48 [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1498205787948294145

ReconfigBehSci. (2022, January 1). RT @wanderer_jasnah: Quick glance at B.1.640.2 before anyone asks me about it: It’s basically B.1.1.7 w/a large Spike NTD deletion. I see… [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1478289563776962563

ReconfigBehSci. (2022, January 5). RT @thehowie: "...Rapid antigen tests may not be as fit-for-purpose in routine workplace screening to prevent asymptomatic spread of Omicro… [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1478796550004486151

Israel said delaying rollout of 4th COVID shots amid signs Omicron less severe | The Times of Israel. (n.d.). Retrieved 29 March 2022, from https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-said-to-delay-rollout-of-4th-covid-shots-amid-signs-omicron-less-severe/amp/

ReconfigBehSci. (2021, December 5). RT @AnnaAlbecka: I guess Omicron is not going anywhere with already >5% of sequences in Belgium and Netherlands #Omicron https://t.co/b2Xs7… [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1467821013941510145

Myths about COVID-19 vaccination. (n.d.). HackMD. Retrieved March 23, 2022, from https://hackmd.io/@scibehC19vax/misinfo_myths

Mar 03, M. V. B. | N. W. | C. N. | & 2022. (n.d.). Third vaccine dose boosts Omicron protection, with some waning. CIDRAP. Retrieved 7 March 2022, from https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2022/03/third-vaccine-dose-boosts-omicron-protection-some-waning

Omicron BA2 infects more in vaccinated

Marc Stegger. (2022, February 22). New preprint on #COVID19 is out: “Occurrence and significance of Omicron BA.1 infection followed by BA.2 reinfection”. Using the national surveillance system in Denmark, we show that reinfections with #SARSCoV2 VOC #Omicron BA.2 can occur after recent BA.1 infection #SSI_dk https://t.co/Cm0n8vga4P [Tweet]. @MarcStegger. https://twitter.com/MarcStegger/status/1496099303143653379

Stegger, M., Edslev, S. M., Sieber, R. N., Ingham, A. C., Ng, K. L., Tang, M.-H. E., Alexandersen, S., Fonager, J., Legarth, R., Utko, M., Wilkowski, B., Gunalan, V., Bennedbæk, M., Byberg-Grauholm, J., Møller, C. H., Christiansen, L. E., Svarrer, C. W., Ellegaard, K., Baig, S., … Rasmussen, M. (2022). Occurrence and significance of Omicron BA.1 infection followed by BA.2 reinfection (p. 2022.02.19.22271112). medRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.02.19.22271112

Tseng, H. F., Ackerson, B. K., Luo, Y., Sy, L. S., Talarico, C. A., Tian, Y., Bruxvoort, K. J., Tubert, J. E., Florea, A., Ku, J. H., Lee, G. S., Choi, S. K., Takhar, H. S., Aragones, M., & Qian, L. (2022). Effectiveness of mRNA-1273 against SARS-CoV-2 Omicron and Delta variants. Nature Medicine, 1–1. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-022-01753-y

Cornelius Roemer. (2022, February 12). Fantastic work by @UKHSA comparing serial intervals of BA.1, BA.2 and Delta as published in the most recent technical briefing. BA.2 seems to have even shorter serial interval than BA.1 This could help explain different relative growth rates of BA.2 vs BA.1 in different countries https://t.co/Gch94Ew8CX [Tweet]. @CorneliusRoemer. https://twitter.com/CorneliusRoemer/status/1492434232664375304

Altarawneh, H. N., Chemaitelly, H., Hasan, M. R., Ayoub, H. H., Qassim, S., AlMukdad, S., Coyle, P., Yassine, H. M., Al-Khatib, H. A., Benslimane, F. M., Al-Kanaani, Z., Al-Kuwari, E., Jeremijenko, A., Kaleeckal, A. H., Latif, A. N., Shaik, R. M., Abdul-Rahim, H. F., Nasrallah, G. K., Al-Kuwari, M. G., … Abu-Raddad, L. J. (2022). Protection against the Omicron Variant from Previous SARS-CoV-2 Infection. New England Journal of Medicine, 0(0), null. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMc2200133

Dr. Peter Hotez: Omicron is like a fast-moving freight train. (n.d.). MSN. Retrieved February 20, 2022, from https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/dr-peter-hotez-omicron-is-like-a-fast-moving-freight-train/vi-AARPfVG