Omicron is Less Deadly Yet Kills More People

A story out of the UK reveals an irony about the Omicron variant. It is less deadly, but has killed more people than Delta. How can both things be true? It's a numbers game. 

Delta was more likely to put you in the hospital or kill you. But Omicron is a lot more contagious, with more ability to evade antibodies from vaccinations or previous infection. 

So Omicron and its sub-variants are causing more infections. About a month ago I blogged about how seemingly all of my friends were getting it. That has continued. Because it is causing more infections, it is causing more deaths even though it is less pathogenic.

A virologist in the article put it this way:  “To use a shooting analogy, Delta is like a sniper rifle and Omicron is more like someone with an Uzi (machine gun). So each individual shot might be less likely to kill someone but there’s a lot more bullets."

In the U.S., it has been especially bad in rural areas. Experts attribute that to low vaccination rates.

Meanwhile, here is some cheerful news. Israel is seeing a sharp rise in serious illness, with a 70% increase over one week. They attribute it to the spread of one of the Sons of Omicron, BA.5. 

Is it coming to get us in Arizona? Here is the latest variant data from ASU's Lim Lab:


From June 6 to June 13, BA.4 actually decreased and BA.5 leveled-off. This is different from BA.2.12.1, which arrived in mid March and has increased every week. So maybe we are catching a break on this one, for a change.


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