The MOCOS Group (MOdeling COronavirus Spread) is an international interdisciplinary team of scientists dealing with modeling the COVID-19 pandemic. Scientists from the Wrocław University of Science and Technology, the University of Wrocław, the Medical University of Wrocław and experts from Nokia Wrocław, EY GDS Poland and MicroscopeIT have developed a short-term pandemic forecast up to February 1, 2022.

Prof. Maciej Banach from the Medical University of Lodz predicts that at the turn of January and February there may be 100,000 cases of coronavirus infection daily in Poland.

The published data show that the seven-day average number of diagnosed infections in Poland will increase sharply after the second week of January. On January 14, the average number of infections will increase from the level of approx. 12 thousand to approx. 16 thousand. This will be the beginning of the fifth wave of the pandemic – the next days will bring the increases in the average by several thousand cases.

According to scientists, the accumulation of infections will happen on January 29; it will result in over 108 thousand cases daily. From then on, this number will start to drop slightly.

MOCOS also forecasts an increase in the number of deaths of patients infected with the coronavirus. The seven-day average will drop until January 15, then there will be a systematic growth.  The highest level will be recorded on January 28 and 29 – over 680 people are expected to die of COVID-19 daily.

According to Prof. Banach omicron variant, which appeared in November last year, will soon dominate in Poland in terms of the number of infections. This is shown by examples of other countries in Western Europe and the development of the pandemic in the United States, where the omicron is currently responsible for 95 percent cases.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński