Don't Fall for the "Mild Omicron Trap"
Your Rights are Not Contingent on the Severity of the Next Variant
Since it was first announced over a week ago, the media has continued to fixate with outsized, near panicked, focus on the Omicron variant. As many have pointed out, the data, to date, does not show that Omicron causes any more severe disease than the currently circulating strains and anecdotal evidence shows that it may even be more mild. At the same time, I'd warn against falling for the "Mild Omicron Trap". Allow me to explain:
Currently our public health betters are doubling down on Covid restrictions, using Omicron as the excuse even as so far there is little data to show there is any need. Biden laid out his "Winter Plan" to combat Covid including added restrictions for travel.
In localities such as New York City, Would Be Covid Dictators have unleashed "Preemptive Strikes" in the form of ever tighter mask and vaccine mandates.
We only need to look to Europe to see how far this may go.
The knee jerk response is to say that these increased measures aren't needed, since if anything Omicron appears to be a much milder form of Covid. There are promising signs out of South Africa where the variant's detection first brought worldwide attention. Even though Covid cases in South Africa have entered a 4th wave and are increasing at a faster rate than any previous wave, Covid deaths remains flat at the lowest levels of the pandemic.
There's also anecdotal evidence that most of those cases are mild or asymptomatic and that many of those hospitalized with Omicron so far are actually in the hospital for other reasons. (Though the fact is similar attributes have been true for Covid all along)
There's also the fact that according to the WHO there has yet to be a confirmed death from Omicron.
All promising signs, but the plural of anecdote is not data.
If we zoom in and compare the South African Covid situation to one year ago during their second wave (Beta variant) we can clearly illustrate what we know so far:
So far cases are indeed increasing much more quickly than last year whereas deaths remain basically flat, great!
But what this graph also makes clear from last year's data is that reported Covid deaths lag Covid cases, usually by multiple weeks. If we correct for that lag we get this:
Now let's zoom in to see the start of this wave more clearly:
What we can see clearly is that, once properly lagged, we have yet to reach the date at which we would expect to see a rise in Covid Deaths that corresponds with the rise in Covid Cases. More disappointingly, hospital admissions do seem to be increasing in line with Covid cases, and the fact of the matter is, the relationship between hospitalizations and deaths has not varied greatly throughout the pandemic. A certain fraction of those admitted to the hospital will die, and regardless of what they actually died of, if they were positive for Covid, it's recorded as a Covid death.
This relationship may not hold, Omicron may indeed be more mild, but we likely won't know for sure as the lag between cases and deaths can vary by 1 to something 3 or 4 weeks.
The point is we have not seen enough data yet to move us from what should be our base prior: That Omicron does not change the game.
Just as the Flu is the Flu every year, and that regardless of what Flu variant it happens to be, whether it may be a little milder or more severe, it's still basically "The Flu". Likewise, we should not expect Covid to change dramatically in such a short time regardless of how much media hype surrounds a certain mutation to a certain part of the spike protein...
And this is where this trap gets sprung. If we ground our argument that additional Covid restrictions aren't needed based on Omicron's anecdotal mildness we may be grounding our argument on quicksand. If and when it turns out that Omicron is indeed of similar severity to other variants we will have played right into the hands of our Would Be Public Health Dictators.
So don't play the game.
The argument for why we needn't panic because of Omicron is not that the variant is more mild. We don't need to panic because Omicron is still Covid, and Covid isn't going away. None of the measures proposed by the Public Health Establishment will prevent the next Covid wave, all they do is restrict our rights to live our lives as we see fit. Do not concede that ground or contingent your rights on the level of severity of the next variant. It's ground you will then have to cede every winter...
We must admit we have no tools to stop the spread of Covid, Omicron variant or otherwise. This includes the vaccines which do not prevent spread.
What we have are treatments, chiefly among them a vaccine, and there is no data anywhere that shows Omicron defeats the protection against hospitalization and death offered by the vaccine. There are also monoclonal antibodies, other alternative treatments touted by Covid19CriticalCare among others, as well as basic health practices one can take to reduce their risk. At this point everyone should know what they can best do to lower their risk of ending up dead from Covid to a level of risk they are personally acceptable with. This is no longer a public health mission.
So don't fall for the "Mild Omicron Trap". Don't play this game with your rights.
Anyway 0 and 2...