Death rates are down because most people are vaccinated now

Exactly. Even the much-touted "mild" Omicron has the same mortality risk as the original strain on those unvaccinated. People forget that Delta was worse than the original virus, and Omicron simply reverted to our previous level of deadliness. We are unfortunately seeing no signs of an true lessening of lethality.

Omicron BA.2.2 cases without a complete primary vaccination series appeared to face a similar fatality risk to those infected in earlier waves with the ancestral strain.