It's 'Over': Omicron May Be About as Deadly as the Seasonal Flu, New Data Shows

It's the beginning of the end for the Covid pandemic. But the fight against authoritarian Covid policies is just beginning.

The Omicron variant is far less deadly than earlier variants. such as Delta and the “wild” variant. It might even be comparable to the seasonal flu, if current trends in the data hold up.

A chart in the The Washington Post shows that while there has been a 'tsunami' of Omicron cases in the United States, the hospitalization has bent up slightly and the death rate has plateaued.

The Post showed that South Africa, where the first Omicron surge was detected, saw a dramatic spike in reported cases followed by a modest increase in the death rate.

The Post tried to explain Omicron fizzling out in South Africa without a major surge in death rates by pointing to the country's median age of 28 years old, which is ten years lower than in the United States. Furthermore, a South African doctor told the Washington Post that more than 70% of the population may have natural immunity from prior infections.

But it should be noted that South Africa has a "fully vaccinated" rate of just 27%, which is very low compared to the United States (62%) and the United Kingdom (71%). This suggests that the Omicron variant is "generally mild" for both the vaccinated and unvaccinated, as the South African doctor who discovered the first Omicron patient noted, while prior infection from Omicron appears to provide some natural immunity to other variants, such as Delta.

Omicron, indeed, seems to be "different." Yet assessing its actual deadliness is not as straightforward as one might be led to believe.