SergeantGander posted...
I'm no virologist so correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't some first reports after cases saying that Omnicron variant is more mild?
Which if I'm not mistaken is usually how life cycle of viruses goes? Mutate themselves to death essentially?
On Omicron specifically - there's some early reports, yes, but there isn't really enough evidence to say
either way
yet. A lot of the more severe cases start as mild ones that get worse instead of recovering, for starters. There were early similar claims around Alpha and Delta as well, and while from memory I think they may have held true for Alpha (I don't really recall for sure), Delta seems to be slightly more dangerous than earlier variants once you control for the difference in vaccination rates now compared to when earlier variants were the ones circulating.
On viruses in general - that's the theoretically ideal path for them to take under normal conditions, but ultimately, mutations are random. They establish themself because if a mutation is favorable, the virus carrying it will generally survive and make more copies of itself, eventually outcompeting the ones without the mutation (whereas an unfavorable mutation is likely to die out - but neither of these are guaranteed, just likely; a good one could get unlucky and die out early, or a bad one could get lucky and establish itself). And yes - this would generally favor a mild illness (because people with mild illnesses are less likely to avoid contact with others and/or seek treatment that may interfere with the virus's reproduction), but a highly contagious one (for obvious reasons). But we can see exceptions to the normal pattern in history when there's abnormal circumstances - the Spanish Flu, and how it adapted to these conditions being inverted in war time (mild illness = the person keeps fighting with limited close contact with others; severe illness = dragged off to a military hospital where there's lots of people), is the most infamous example. So, either a situation where higher severity is favorable for some reason, or just luck going in the wrong direction, could still lead to the outcome of a worse virus - even though it's the less likely path.
tl;dr: Not enough evidence yet on Omicron's severity; your idea about the general trend of viruses is the most likely course but not the only possible outcome.
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