So I have some good news.
We have some new data from Public Health Ontario with the Omicron Variant.
Omicron is now the dominant variant in Ontario by far. In the week Dec 19 to Dec 25, 88.8% of cases were Omicron. That is good news!
SARS-CoV-2 Whole Genome Sequencing in Ontario, January 11, 2022 (publichealthontario.ca)
Why?
Public Health Ontario has been tracking the rate of hospitalization, ICU admission, and death due to Delta vs Omicron. Here’s what they found from Nov 22 to Dec 24 :
Of the 24,432 cases of Delta
689 (2.82%) were hospitalized
248 (1.02%) were admitted to ICU
133 (0.54%) died
Of the 37,296 cases of Omicron
115 (0.31%) were hospitalized
21 (0.06%) were admitted to ICU
12 (0.03%) died
See Table 1
Do you see the good news? Omicron vs. Delta
Hospitalized
0.31% vs 2.82%
this equates to a 89% decrease with Omicron (9 times less)
ICU
0.06% vs 1.02%
this equates to a 94% decrease with Omicron (17 times less)
Death
0.03% vs 0.54%
this equates to a 94% decrease with Omicron (18 times less)
Omicron is 18 times less deadly than Delta
To put this in perspective, the flu/pneumonia has an infection fatality rate (IFR) of 0.1%.
Flu deaths are about 3% of flu/pneumonia deaths. That gives an IFR for Flu as 0.003%
Deaths from influenza and pneumonia 2015-2020 - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)
The older variants of Covid (ie. Alpha) produced an IFR around 0.27% overall. For the 0-19 age group, covid fatality is 100 times less than the average at 0.0027. Here are the IFR’s by age:
0-19 — 0.0027%
20-29 — 0.014%
30-39 — 0.031%
40-49 — 0.082%
50-59 — 0.27%
60-69 — 0.59%
Infection fatality rate of COVID-19 inferred from seroprevalence data (nih.gov)
UK data showed a CASE fatality rate (CFR) for Alpha at 1.9% (4353/227214), and a CFR for Delta 0.4% (2547/593861).
SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern and variants under investigation (publishing.service.gov.uk)
So Delta is almost 5 TIMES less deadly than Alpha.
That would put the infection fatality rate of Delta at around 0.06% (0.27/5).
The Ontario data says Omicron is 18 TIMES less deadly than Delta which would give Omicron an IFR of 0.003% (0.06/18).
So let’s pull all this together. Based on this chain of data the Infection fatality rates are approximately:
Old Covid (ie. Alpha) 0.27%
Flu/Pneumonia 0.1%
Delta 0.06%
Flu 0.003%
Omicron 0.003%
0-19 age Old Covid (ie. Alpha) 0.0027%
Omicron 0-19 age no data but most likely less
So this makes Omicron 90 times less deadly than Alpha and exactly the same as the flu.
For young people Covid has always been the same as the flu. For the first 6 months or even the first year, I’ll give our leaders a pass as not enough data had come in to make solid data driven decisions. Now, there is no excuse. The data is in. Other news agencies have done the same number crunching I did and look what they found.
We have never had lockdowns or vaccine mandates for the flu in my lifetime.
With Omicron, Covid is now a flu, that is what the data says. It's time to stop this nonsense and get back to normal. Yes, if you are immunocompromised, old, or you have other comorbidities, you still need to be careful and make sure you have early treatments available in your medicine cabinet. If you are sick, stay home, but
for the HEALTHY, the pandemic is over.
Covid is now a very treatable disease especially if you do treatment early. Vitamin D, Zinc, Quercetin, Melatonin, Nigella Sativa, Iodine spray, etc….
Let's stop the fear of getting Omicron.
Stop the Lockdowns. Stop the Vaccine Mandates. Give everyone their jobs back. Let the college/university students go back to school. Let those who need surgery have it. Let's especially bring back our nurses & doctors back into our struggling health care system.
Stop the segregation, division, and let's get back to treating each other with respect.
Some might say that this is a risky strategy. Lets look squarely at risk for a moment. Remember Omicron has a 0.003% chance of dying.
Chance of dying
Grand Prix driving 1%
Hang Gliding 0.18%
Motorbike racing 0.1%
Mountain climbing 0.057%
Boxing 0.045%
Driving a car 0.015%
Canoeing 0.01%
Scuba diving 0.003%
American football 0.002%
Your Chances of Dying & Other Health Risks (besthealthdegrees.com)
Do you get the point?
If getting back to normal is too risky because Omicron has a 0.003% chance of dying, then we will have to outlaw a few other risky activities.
We had better close that scuba school. Time to burn those canoes. Let’s shutdown the automobile industry. Don’t even think about having any human being lace up boxing gloves. At some point we need to see the irrationality of continuing with any more restrictions. There is no more scientific justification to continue with this. Any more continuance would have to have some other nefarious motive behind it.
Unless a new more deadly variant pops up,