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Comment by jpster | Hacker News Reader

New variants have followed Omicron. And that will continue to happen. They may be more benign or less benign than what we’ve seen so far. But I keep hearing the assumption of “definitely mild”. I’m not sure the science is so definitive on that point.

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That will not necessarily continue to happen, at least not soon. Once you've been exposed to omicron (+ vaxed or exposed to original/delta) a new variant has to be very different from both omicron and delta. And this isn't the flu; it only has so far it can mutate.

However, it's impossible to get rid of it because it infects animals and we're not going to vaccinate them.

I don’t understand your statements. Omicron had many changes vs delta — why would successive variants not have the same?

> Only has so far it can mutate

Says who?

Agreed, I can't see anything stopping it mutating further if the opportunity arises.

I believe the understanding is that the omicron variant may have evolved further in an immuno-compromised person (e.g. with AIDS, or undergoing chemotherapy), since it got to stay in the host longer without being killed by the immune system, it racked up more mutations until it got to its current virulent form and started infecting other people.

And there's absolutely nothing stopping that from happening again I guess.

I said nothing about mild. I said "contagious".

Before Omicron, we had a hope of creating an R0 < 1 and stamping Covid out. Omicron spreads so well in so many different mammals that it simply wipes that option off the map.

Omicron, irrespective of whether it is mild or not, is simply going to blow through the population no matter what we do. Afterward everybody will have been infected with Covid, vaccinated, or both.

At that point, we'll have a background level of deaths from endemic Covid every year just like we do the flu. Welcome to the new world.

> At that point, we'll have a background level of deaths from endemic Covid every year just like we do the flu. Welcome to the new world.

I agree. Just like we do for RSV, other common cold variants, etc. We'll get used to it.

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