Promisingly, hospitals and GPs across South Africa are reporting that the symptoms of Omicron are “unusual, but
very mild”:
https://www.cityam.com/coronavirus-...mutation-kills-off-more-lethal-delta-variant/
Even though cases are going up and 90% of cases in South Africa are now caused by Omicron, death rates and even hospital admissions are not increasing significantly, suggesting a lower severity than previous strains.
Patients are also getting milder symptoms, with most Omicron-infected patients merely getting a severe headache, nausea or dizziness. No loss of taste and smell like past strains; the symptoms are seemingly milder with this variant, and it’s seemingly less lethal.
The WHO says that preliminary evidence is showing Omicron to be more transmissible and carry a greater risk of reinfection than other strains.
However, it appears to be less lethal, and due to its combination of high transmissibility and low rate of severe disease, some scientists are cautiously optimistic that this displacing the much more lethal Delta variant as the dominant strain will actually be quite good for the world, and that the disease may be showing early signs of doing what a lot of scientists thought would happen (it gradually mutating to become mild and endemic like the other circulating coronaviruses).
Of course we should still keep an eye on Omicron, but isn’t this a potentially hopeful development?