Why Does the U.S. Always Seem to Get Coronavirus Variants After Europe Does?

COVID cases have recently spiked in Europe, fueled by dropping temperatures, indoor socializing, and an unwelcome brood of antibody-dodging omicron subvariants. “In the past, what’s happened in Europe often has been a harbinger for what’s about to happen in the United States,” Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, tells NPR. “So I think the bottom line message for us in this country is: We have to be prepared for what they are beginning to see in Europe.” For much of the pandemic, events in Europe have indeed seemed to be a divination of what will happen next in the U.S. At the pandemic’s onset, the virus ripped through an unprepared Italy just a few weeks before it devasted New York City. In the first few weeks of the omicron outbreak in South Africa, Meyers and her team analyzed Facebook mobility data to correctly predict that cases would peak in certain European countries before the United States. “I don’t actually know how the school schedules or the patterns of being indoors or outdoors differ between the United States and European countries, but there could be something about the cadences of life and climate that lead to earlier surges in Europe.” Both Viboud and Meyers emphasize that these are all hypotheses, and data has yet to establish that the Europe-to-U.S. trend will continue.