Those numbers from South Africa look pretty good, that Omicron is less serious and less fatal, than other variants of concern - apparently way less.
Botswana’s Acting Director of Health said that 16 out of their 19 cases were flat out asymptomatic, and the remaining three had “very, very mild” symptoms. (https://news.yahoo.com/botswanas-health-director-says-majority-150945144.html)
The Botswana sample is tiny, but in South Africa, omicron is already the dominant strain in the major city of Johannesburg, and there is barely a blip in hospitalizations, from their post-Delta lows.
It may be that Delta has already picked off the vulnerable, but it seems very likely that omicron is just mild.
It also seems to be extremely transmissible - the first variant able to displace Delta. One posting (from a guy on twitter, admittedly) reported that Delta had a 70% transmission advantage over the original strain, but Omicron is more like 500%.
The two big questions that are still unclear, are how effective is the immunity developed from Omicron infection against COVID generally, and what degree of protection do the vaccines provide?
If it is very mild, it may not matter much if the vaccines protect against it.
If it is effective in producing strong immunity against COVID, it might put a more rapid end to further waves of COVID.
It has already been detected in Canada, the UK and Australia; and is likely already in the USA. It will probably be in full flower for Christmas.
If we understand the biological principle of *Muller’s Ratchet*, what we observe in South Africa should not surprise us. It is the same principle that ended the Spanish Flu, Hongkong Flu. SARS-COV-1 and a host of other pandemics.
It is the nature of Viruses to “seek” hosts to attach to and the more defenses one creates ( e.g. vaccines ), the more they mutate and transmit faster to live hosts... until they eventually reach their evolutionary end and become endemic like the common flu. Viruses do not mutate to be so virulent to kill off potential hosts otherwise they themselves will not survive. Hence they will mutate and transmit faster but not to be more lethal or stronger, but less lethal.
We should expect more mutants to evolve, but their lethality should weaken. In fact, as the South African doctor who helped discover Omicron observes, the more people get infected by weaker mutants, the more the number of natural immunity kicks in. It will then become endemic.
This Coronavirus will be with us in perpetuity. It remains to be seen what variant becomes dominant. We can do nothing but try to boost our immune system and live a healthy lifestyle. The rest, we leave in God’s hands.