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by ed_balls 1664 days ago
> The omicron variant could be a blessing in disguise

Not really. There is a very low evolutionary pressure to become less deadly.* You start infecting people in day 3, have symptoms on day 8 and die on day 20. You can walk around for a week infecting people before you die. Compare it to previous SARS epidemic, where people started infecting others much later. It just died out, because people were isolated at homes and hospitals.

*SARS-COV-2 is an upper respiratory track disease and SARS-COV-1 is a lower respiratory track disease.