[magneticnorth]

I think we aren't very confident yet that there's much selective pressure toward less severe disease - the reason being that the virus does a lot of its spreading before symptoms get to be their worst, so the severity of "worst" doesn't seem to factor into the evolutionary fitness of the virus. And this is supported by the fact that delta was both more contagious and more severe.

We seem to have gotten lucky that omicron is even more contagious but less severe; fingers crossed that bolsters worldwide immunity.