They estimate 30% of the US population got covid in 2020. How much more infectiousness actually matters.

The problem in the US is NOT ENOUGH Omicron. It looked like it was all Omicron then the CDC updated and there is a lot more Delta out there than thought. Updates in the UK and South Africa continue to show very very low death rates. FAR FAR lower than previous rounds of Covid despite increased contagiousness. ICU rates are actually down in the UK.

We do it almost implicitly. When people are sicker, they don't go out. If they are facing limited symptoms, they do.

And we *don't* put controls on asymptomatic people.

Hospitalizations are at 208/million. They peaked at 400 in January and reached 300 in August. We aren't there yet.

ICU admissions are at 50 and not rising quickly (they were rising more quickly before Omicron). They were at 78 in September and 86 in January. 

It'll still be temporary, but if we can encourage less powerful variants to continually circulate then we'll get a big benefit. Getting a cold every few months because of continual exposure is better than facing a deathly illness every year.

I'm far from there (I have almost 30 home tests in my fridge), but the reports I've read say the rise in cases is much much higher than reported. Unfortunately, hospitalizations are rising but it could still be very much a net positive as other reports are showing great immunity post-Omicron. The higher the real caseload vs. hospitalization the less dangerous the virus.

Don't freak out. As more data comes in it looks like hospitalizations are rising some - but not as much as past waves. Notably, ICU admissions don't seem to be rising yet. Again, they'll probably rise some but this is a much less dangerous variant.

The data looks like this. Cases are shooting up, but hospitalizations and deaths aren't. This suggests you are *far* more likely to have a light Omicron case than a difficult one and that it is displacing more serious varients. It is like a vaccine that gives you a pretty brutal cold and that you get whether or not you want it.

If you are elderly/infirm etc.... it can still be dangerous. But even so, it is far less dangerous.

10X contagious means two things.
1) It spreads more easily. This doesn't seem to matter much, Delta spread plenty easily. Short of island-nation isolation non-infection was much more a matter of luck (or ignorance) than anything else. It is estimated over 100 million Americans had corona by the end of 2020! So everybody gets it. So 'more contagious' actually means....
2) People get it faster. It'll rip through the population much more quickly. But if hospitalizations in SA (which has only 25% full vaccination) are 80-90% lower, then in the US they are probably 90-95% lower. So even getting it faster could see a lower hospital burden - especially if it displaces Delta cases.

SA saw a rise in hospitalization, but not intensive care. These were much shorter, lighter, stays. Look at US hospitalizations - it has almost flattened in the last week and a half as Omicron has taken over. It has flattened at levels significantly lower than those just a few months ago. The UK has seen a slight rise (again, nothing like previous rounds) despite a burst of Omicron.

The data points to a lighter hospital burden. This is a far better virus. It displaces worse variants. If it and its ilk cycle through the population we will have a much more maneagable reality going forward. 

Judging by the improvement in death rates, Omicron is displacing Delta. In other words, it is crowding it out. If we can encourage weaker variants then we can renew our immunity through repeated exposure to weaker variants. It is kind of like the 1918 Flu. It killed 50 million people out of a world population of 1.9 billion (corona has killed 5-15 million out of a population of 7.7 billion). People didn't become immune to the flu, though. It still hits every year. The strains just weakened. We know enough now to encourage weaker strains and discourage stronger ones. Just being asymptomatic will make a strain better at spreading.

So we can and should encourage weaker strains, just like breeding more useful animals or fruit.

It won't eliminate the virus, but it could minimize the impact of the virus.

one thing I didn't include in the piece is that 10X infectiousness does not necessarily equal 10X infections. It could just mean that the virus burns through the same population 10X faster. In reality, it is probably something in between - hitting some more people quite a bit faster.