Capitol Hill Blue Forums Science and Technology Health, Medicine & the healing Sciences Coronavirus: The Plague of The 21st Century?

I doubted those claims when I wrote that, and I still doubt it. All those claims are based on Rt being higher for Omicron (and Delta before that). But Epidemiologists are calculating Rt from the spread rate, so the argument is circular. The popular idea is that it's an inherent property of this variant to spread faster, completely ignoring that human behavior is a huge part of Rt. When people ignore safe behavior "because the pandemic is over" or "it's just our extended family getting together" or "it's just our New Years Eve party", spread shoots up. And when 15% of your population has active infections, the exponential growth curve starts getting real steep.

The popular idea is that Covid symptoms are starting sooner after exposure, not later. And that it's a milder variant, with faster recovery. But I doubt those are because of any inherent property of Omicron. They are exactly what you would expect in a highly immune population: Faster onset of symptoms that tell you people's immune systems know all about SARS-COV2 viruses. Milder cases and faster recoveries for the same reason. Like I've been hypothesizing for a long time: The virus is not changing how it affects us. We are changing as collectively we gain immunity.