[peregren]

What matters is how much pressure it puts on the health system. There are 3 things to consider here:

1. how many people end up in ICU (which for Omicron we don't know yet), and at what point ICU becomes overwhelmed in a given region. Once the ICU capacity is exceeded, the mortality rates for bad cases goes way up.

2. How many illnesses unrelated to Covid go untreated due to load on the health system, and subsequently how many excess deaths this causes.

3. After 5-6 months, a lot of vaccine immunity starts dropping off. A regions capacity to get booster doses delivered makes a difference here.