[dnautics]

We also don't know what the mortality rate is. Suppose it has 100% vaccine escape but 0% mortality. Would it be "BAD"?

[WithinReason]

I think a 0% mortality strain displacing delta would be an extremely good outcome. One way pandemics stop is the virus mutating to harmlessness.

[gandutraveler]

That is exactly what I thought of too. So far the symptoms appear to be very mild and this could be a good way to scale immunity

[sharken]

The media is extremely focused on the number of infected and how infectious a new variant is.

Somehow the low number of new hospitalizations is not newsworthy.

Here in Denmark the hospitalizations have been steady at around 45% of the numbers we had when there was no vaccine.

It's also 45% of the numbers we had in 2017/2018 with the flu back then. But that fact is not being used much to put things into perspective.