Abstract

Most of the predictions made by the author at the end of 2022 about the development of scenarios for the coronavirus epidemic at the beginning of 2024 have been confirmed. There is a fungible set of changing SARS-CoV-2 strains, among which there is no longer a leader. In Asian countries, in December 2023, regional outbreaks of morbidity due to strains from a new branch of Omicron, BA.2.86, began, just like a year ago, although, in the summer between waves, the incidence of COVID-19 was low. The predicted nonlocal COVID outbreak is a positive feedback loop: the more infections, the higher the likelihood of further mutations in the virus and the greater chances of strains evading antibodies. It has been confirmed by a number of studies that repeated COVID often causes long-term and severe immunosuppression. The factor of post-COVID immunodeficiency and T-cell depletion in susceptible groups maintains a reservoir for the accumulation of SARS-CoV-2 mutations. This specific phenomenon was not taken into account in model predictions a year ago. The concept of the SIRS model is not applicable to SARS-CoV-2. Omicron’s many branches make it difficult to create a new vaccine. Antigenic drift makes it possible to bypass vaccine immunity, but global outbreaks are not observed for a long time due to the persistence of cytotoxic CD8+ T cells in us. From a dynamic point of view, the COVID-19 pandemic is divided into clusters of regional epidemics and demonstrates oscillatory dynamics. The oscillations have changed their character, with the wave crests becoming longer, although smaller in amplitude. Epidemic waves do not develop so rapidly, but grow gradually; however, this only increases the final number of cases. The damped amplitude of the waves of infection that formed after the initial outbreak again turns into an extreme peak. This may be due to effects after crisis events: mass infections or an increase in virulence of a new strain that evades the antibodies of vaccine immunity, but is destroyable. The two situations are different. We classified the observed local epidemic scenarios of COVID waves according to the types of oscillations from a physical point of view. COVID waves are no longer classic decaying relaxation oscillations. Using simulation modeling, we analyzed variants of epidemic dynamics with sharp changes. Special epidemic scenarios of the sudden occurrence of a short wave as a probable development of the current situation in 2024 were studied on the basis of nonlinear equations with a deviating argument. The COVID wave of the JN.1 strain in winter 2024 is the second fastest growing in cases of severe disease after the Omicron BA.1 wave in spring 2022 and will inevitably lead to a new impulse round in the evolution of the coronavirus.

中文翻译：

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大流行病流行阶段 SARS-CoV-2 传播局部波形成过程中的转变建模

摘要

作者在2022年底做出的关于2024年初冠状病毒流行情景发展的大部分预测都已得到证实。存在一组可替代的变异 SARS-CoV-2 毒株，其中不再有领导者。 2023 年 12 月，亚洲国家开始出现由 Omicron 新分支 BA.2.86 菌株引起的区域性发病，就像一年前一样，尽管在两次浪潮之间的夏季，COVID-19 的发病率较低。预测的非本地新冠疫情爆发是一个正反馈循环：感染越多，病毒进一步突变的可能性就越大，病毒株逃避抗体的可能性就越大。多项研究证实，新冠病毒的反复感染往往会导致长期、严重的免疫抑制。新冠肺炎后免疫缺陷和易感群体 T 细胞耗竭的因素为 SARS-CoV-2 突变的积累提供了储存库。一年前的模型预测中并未考虑到这一特定现象。 SIRS 模型的概念不适用于 SARS-CoV-2。 Omicron 的众多分支使得开发新疫苗变得困难。抗原漂移使得绕过疫苗免疫成为可能，但由于细胞毒性 CD8+ T 细胞在我们体内持续存在，因此在很长一段时间内没有观察到全球性疫情的爆发。从动态角度来看，COVID-19大流行分为区域性流行病集群，并表现出振荡动态。振荡改变了它们的特征，波峰变得更长，尽管幅度更小。疫情的发展不是那么迅速，而是逐渐增长；然而，这只会增加最终的案件数量。最初爆发后形成的感染波的衰减幅度再次变成了一个极端的峰值。这可能是由于危机事件后的影响：大规模感染或逃避疫苗免疫抗体但可被破坏的新毒株毒力增加。两种情况是不同的。我们从物理角度根据振荡类型对观察到的本地新冠肺炎波疫情情景进行了分类。 COVID 波不再是经典的衰减弛豫振荡。利用模拟模型，我们分析了急剧变化的流行病动态变化。基于带有偏差参数的非线性方程，研究了 2024 年当前局势可能发展的短波突然出现的特殊流行情景。 2024 年冬季 JN.1 毒株的新冠疫情浪潮是继 2022 年春季 Omicron BA.1 疫情之后重症病例中增长速度第二快的疫情，将不可避免地引发冠状病毒进化的新一轮冲动。