Omicron: Early evidence from the UK is the silver lining in a dark cloud of cases

1/4/22 7:00PM

Early evidence from the UK

‍The silver lining (if there is one) is in the early evidence from the UK.

Benchmarking cases, hospitalizations and deaths to their respective peaks from last winter (credit to John Burn-Murdoch's work on this) shows that the more serious COVID metrics are still way down on where they were last winter — despite cases surging to all-time highs.

There is of course a lag between cases and the more serious outcomes, which is why watching the UK data over the next few weeks will be a crucial indicator for how the US Omicron wave (and waves in other well-vaccinated countries) might play out.

Tom Jones7/10/26

The most watched soccer match in US history got less than a third of the views the Super Bowl did

Between a top-spot finish in the group stage, a sweeping performance against Bosnia and Herzegovina in the round of 32, and the president’s controversial intervention, Monday evening’s USMNT game against Belgium had, to put it lightly, shaped up into a box-office clash.

And though the US players’ performance on the pitch might not have lived up to the high drama off it, American soccer fans certainly showed up. According to early estimates, the 4-1 defeat against Belgium was the most watched soccer telecast in US history, hauling some 40 million viewers on average across the coverage on Fox and Telemundo.

That may be a record tally in the US for the sport that much of the world calls some variant of “football” — besting the 36.2 million who tuned in to watch the team’s previous knock-out match — but it’s still peanuts in comparison to the sport that shares the same name in the States.