early data are based largely on reports from South Africa—a country with a relatively young population and high level of prior infection—and on reports involving international travelers, who tend to be younger and healthier.
If Omicron does cause less severe disease than previous variants, the sheer number of infections could still result in a similar or greater number of severe cases.
Just going to point out again, it took me THIRTEEN HOURS to get a "rapid" test. That involved going to the clinic at 7 in the morning, waiting over an hour on line outside in below freezing weather just to get a number, then spending another hour and a half waiting at the clinic when my number got called 10 hours later. If anything, the cases are being massively under-recorded. I watched a continuous stream of people come into the clinic while I was waiting for my test get turned around and told to try again tomorrow. It happened nearly once per minute.
Oh wow, and I thought we had it bad when I hat to wait for 40 minutes at the test center. :doomjak:
At home covid tests are sold out everywhere I live in
Yeah, that was going to be my first move but the place put "SOLD OUT" signs up because so many people would look around the store and not be able to find them. Then I looked into some pharmacies which do testing but their electronic booking systems were booked for days.