COVID Variants

Very transmissible (especially within the vaccinated community) but mild sickness

COVID variants are no big deal unless your vaccinated—

For the unvaccinated, omicron had only a 1.17 times higher secondary infection rate than delta. But for the fully vaccinated, omicron caused 2.61 times more secondary infections than delta, and for the booster-vaccinated, omicron caused 3.66 times more secondary infections than delta. 

In other words, unvaccinated individuals were just as vulnerable to omicron as they were to delta, but vaccinated individuals were much more likely to be infected by omicron than they were by delta. 

The new variant was 5.41 times more likely to reinfect someone who has some level of immunity than delta was, the researchers wrote. 

While omicron may more easily evade immunity, it's also been associated with milder disease, according to multiple studies. 

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the CDC, said last week that "the disease is mild" in almost all the cases seen so far in the United States. 

Omicron was responsible for 58.6% of all new cases in the United States in the week that ended Dec. 25, according to the CDC. 

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