When will the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron subvariant XBB represent more than 70.0% of total COVID-19 cases in the US?

Started Oct 28, 2022 05:00PM UTC
Closed Feb 10, 2023 07:00PM UTC
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The Omicron subvariant "XBB" has made headlines as a so-called "nightmare" variant that has spread quickly in Asia and beyond (NBC Chicago, Yahoo News, CDC, STAT). The CDC estimates proportions of SARS-CoV-2 lineages circulating in the United States by week here: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#variant-proportions. For the week ending 22 October 2022, other Omicron variants represented a combined 100.0% percent share of COVID lineages in the US (see "%Total"). The question would close as of the week for which the threshold is reached—and weeks including "Nowcast" estimates (i.e., columns with "NOWCAST" at the top) would count—or else the week ending 8 April 2023. If the named sourced changes the way it presents the data, we will make the appropriate modifications to the resolution instructions.

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NOTE 11 November 2022: Any XBB sublineages would count. Whether an identified variant is considered to be XBB or a sublineage of XBB is dependent on the classification by the CDC.

NOTE 2 January 2023: The aggregate of XBB and its sublineages (e.g., XBB.1.5) would count.


The question closed "A week ending between 21 January 2023 and 25 February 2023" with a closing date of 10 February 2023.

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Possible Answer Correct? Final Crowd Forecast
The week ending 3 December 2022 or before 0%
A week ending between 10 December 2022 and 14 January 2023 0%
A week ending between 21 January 2023 and 25 February 2023 96%
A week ending between 4 March 2023 and 8 April 2023 3%
Not before 9 April 2023 1%

Crowd Forecast Profile

Participation Level
Number of Forecasters 32
Average for questions older than 6 months: 206
Number of Forecasts 220
Average for questions older than 6 months: 584
Accuracy
Participants in this question vs. all forecasters better than average

Most Accurate

Relative Brier Score

1.
-0.223909
2.
-0.095159
3.
-0.085198
4.
-0.069063
5.
-0.063832

Recent Consensus, Probability Over Time

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