Omicron

The world is shutting down again due to Omicron.

This new variant is said to be Africa's response to the pandemic.

In general, viruses evolve to become
-- more infectious
-- less deadly
-- immune to the antibodies of previous variants, but, in general, existing variants will be vulnerable to the antibodies against the new ones.

The proof follows:
(1) It is obvious that, all other things equal, a more infectious variant will take over a less transmissible one.
(2) Let us consider two coexisting virus variants, with one being more deadly than the other, while all other things are the same.
The people affected by the less deadly variant will continue to participate in society and spread the virus more effectively. Thus, the less deadly variant will infect more people and take over.
(3) When a virus evolves in an environment where most people have immunity against an existing variant due to widespread natural infection, any genetic mutation that allows the virus to go around the prevailing kind of immunity will enable the new mutant to reinfect the entire population and take over.

In general, the old variants will still be vulnerable to the immune response generated by the new ones. Thus, in general, when a deadly virus infects a population, eventually, a less deadly and more contagious variant evolves, which acts as a natural vaccine against the original deadly virus. Sure, in this natural vaccine production process many of the affected animals or humans will die.

So far, with COVID-19, we've seen it evolve into the Delta Variant in India. Delta is more contagious, and, I believe, less deadly. Thus, the pandemic waves are shorter, with a lot of people dying at the same time. Overall, in places like Romania, where both Delta and the original variant infect the entire population, there are fewer deaths due to Delta. Fewer, but concentrated in a shorter time.

Compared to Delta, Omicron has evolved more. It is thus further from the original variant, and, thus, I expect it to be considerably more contagious, and, at the same time, less deadly. It will transition more and more from clinically looking like a bad flu to being more like a common cold.

At the same time, as vaccine immunity becomes widespread, we should expect new variants to evolve in the vaccinated world that are immune to the dominant vaccine immunity.

In the unlikely event that we contain Omicron, these new variants that evolve independently from Delta are likely to be more deadly than Omicron.

The most likely scenario is a new Omicron wave that will go through the unvaccinated population and try to evolve a way to infect the vaccinated ones.

It will probably succeed in doing so, and the Pharma industry will have to come up with new vaccines. These will be necessary every few months. Some people will choose to be vaccinated, while others will choose to cough away the virus like they do with the flu. Preliminary counts in the UK say that more than half of the detected omicron patients were doubly vaccinated, and WHO claims no deaths due to omicron so far.

Overall, I dare take the controversial position to say that, probably, Omicron is a good development in the COVID-19 story. A less deadly and more contagious variant will act as a natural vaccine, sure, with side effects that appear vastly worse than those of manufactured vaccines.

This is not an argument against vaccination.