Walgreens data: tracking the Omicron 4.6 “variant”

Oct 04, 2022

Well that didn’t take long. I am watching this weekly to keep variant 4.6 on the radar screen. Last week we had a look at early September and discussed how variant 4.6 is not covered by this new bivalent injection. Predictions were that the vaccine would soon be obsolete as 4.6 takes over.

In one week, it went from the 5th most common variant at 6% to the 3rd most common variant at 12%. Well shucks, it is not taking long for this “variant” to gain momentum. Uhm, didn’t the newest latest and greatest booster JUST come out? At this rate, if 4.6 increases by 6% each week, it will only take 2 more weeks to be the prevalent variant. That the new booster does ZERO for.

Also, I have to pay respect to the number of unvaccinated that accounted for total positive tests. 21% of unvaxxed tested positive, which leaves 79% of positive tests being among the vaccinated. I am not sure how many businesses require weekly testing at this point, or what effect that is having on the unvaxxed positivity rates.

** important note to add here…..I have been unable to look at the Walgreens data for the last 4 days. The website that has been bookmarked for 6 months is no longer working. Is Walgreens no longer tracking this? I keep checking multiple times per day. I hope it comes back up! And this is what the above website currently looks like and has for the last 4 days……