Omicron is here, and people are excited, *This may be the end of this*, it’s really conditional to if it kills way less than Delta, this is a real possibility, we all hope that .
But, because there’s always a but, let’s not jump the shark, let’s be prudent, cautious, because if it‘s not, we are royally fucked, just a mortality rate of Delta, would really be a enormous problem, that could literally make the first wave look like nothing .
People throw arguments like “Evolutionary pressure”, that the “Virus don’t want to kill us”, that it’s not advantageous for him (The virus) to kill us .
I’m no biologist, doctor or anything like that, I’m just someone who reads a lot, and likes to understand how things work.
But what I know, for a fact, is that a virus one and only goal is to propagate, replicate, that’s it, this is what makes a strain more effective from another, and outcompete his rival strain, this has no link with the death of a patient .
Not only does this have no link, it’s almost completely irrelevant in the case of Covid, since infected people shed most of the virus at the very beginning of the infection, and the ones that die, are not contagious at the time of death, often dying from cytokine storm .(https://www.newscientist.com/definition/cytokine-storm/ )
So before a patient dies, he already lost most of his potential chance of infecting someone else.
There’s no evolutionary pressure, people should realize that those mutation are mostly random, and occur at a very fast rate, and there’s is a possibility that Omicron is less lethal, but if it’s the case, it’s not because the “Virus” don’t want to kill us, or that not killing us would give i’m a advantage over other strain.
Here’s a video of John Campbell explaining it way better than i could(I Know, i know a controversial figure).
Now there’s new science from HKmed, interesting science, not yet peer reviewed , that may explain partly, if this is confirmed, why Omicron *MAY* kill less, Omicron would spread a lighting speed in the upper respiratory tract (70 times faster than the wild strain), and slower in the lower respiratory tract (10 time less than the wild strain) …
That may indicate less severe symptom at least, in the beginning, it may be a significant trait of Omicron, the study is on the first 48H of the infection, now is it a proof, that Omicron is less deadly, no, but this may be an indication, but let don’t be too hasty on that, who know, Omicron may simply take a lot more time to make people really sick, this is not what we see, but there’s many variable to take into account.
South Africa is definitely doing great right now, that makes us hope that this is going to be the case for the rest of the world, but again, let’s not jump the shark on this, because the consequence could be literally catastrophic .
And here’s a video explaining this new science about Omicron :
Link to the not yet peer reviewed summary of the HKmed study : https://www.med.hku.hk/en/news/press/20211215-omicron-sars-cov-2-infection