Researchers model possible COVID-19 trajectories for 2023

In the baseline variant scenario, the model projected 3.54 billion infections, 6.26 million hospitalizations, and 1.58 million deaths.

In the second variant scenario, an Omicron-like variant would have resulted in 5.19 billion infections, 13.6 million hospitalizations, and 2.74 million deaths, with over 2.6 billion cases attributable to this variant. A new variant with Delta-like characteristics would result in 3.64 billion infections, with the new variant accounting for only 423 million infections, 7.87 million hospitalizations, and 2.87 million deaths.

An enhanced Delta-like new variant would result in a massive COVID-19 burden, causing 4.5 billion infections, 21.3 million hospitalizations, and 11.1 million deaths. In the DeltaCron scenario, a new variant with Delta-like severity and Omicron-like infectivity would have resulted in the same number of infections as in the Omicron-like scenario but 30.2 million and 15.9 million hospitalizations and deaths, respectively.