The COVID-19 pandemic

[danbrotherston]

No indication Omicron causes more severe disease than Delta: WHO https://t.co/ujgAfuFclt

Even if it was less severe, it's probably still bad, because bigger number (of infections) times smaller percentage of effects is often still worse than smaller number times bigger number, at the ranges we're looking at here.

Vaccine efficacy against infection probably takes a noticeable hit, against hospitalization still pretty good, and boosters are likely to help, according to the experts.

I mean, this isn't true, it depends entirely on the magnitude of numbers here. The flu is way less common than a cold, but way bigger of a problem.

Still COVID is orders of magnitude worse than a flu, if this variant made it orders of magnitude better, it would still be as bad as the flu, which is bad, and with increased transmissibility, it will be bad.

FWIW...there's also early indications it may hit children much harder. Which is not at all what I wanted to hear.