(12-21-2021, 02:19 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: Maybe I’m wrong; I don’t know, but I’ve heard bad things about Omicron’s transmissibility.
It's highly transmissible because it replicates a lot easier within the nasal airways than previous strains (rather than replicating more in the lungs) resulting in easier spread. But virtually all evidence of those infected - regardless of the country - seems to conclude that the necessity for hospitalization is very, very minimal. There is countless evidence out of South Africa that was showing that fact days/weeks ago (albeit with less proof), but most recently there is even more evidence showing that there is 80% lower risk of hospitalization which is good news as they have the longest term data. Locally in Ontario, Dr. Kieran Moore stated that so far, the hospitalization admission rate for omicron in Ontario is 0.15% and as of yesterday, there are no known cases in any ICU and this is despite it now being the dominant strain here.
This is often the standard evolutionary path of a virus, particularly for a novel one. It starts out impacting those infected very badly because the body just does not have any immune response to it. This kills the hosts, though, so a virus will often mutate into a milder and milder, more transmissible forms, because its only real "goal" is to replicate within hosts indefinitely. It doesn't necessarily want to kill. It also wants to avoid vaccine or antibody immune response and the fact that we now need a booster or 3rd dose (depending on the vaccine one had), this also demonstrates that path.
This was the initial response in South Africa when it was hitting them hard: they said that this mildness could be a good sign that the virus is mutating into something increasingly benign and may start to signal the end of the pandemic, assuming it doesn't make some sort of strange, wild mutation that once again begins becomes deadlier.