19 ms·

The title is misleading. It is possible that Omicron is just as severe and that the effect in the study is because a large percentage of the population had some

by ufo 5y ago

The title is misleading. It is possible that Omicron is just as severe and that the effect in the study is because a large percentage of the population had some immunity from a previous infection or vaccine. > South Africa has a quite high seroprevalence of prior infection, particularly after delta, and in some parts of South Africa up to 80 percent of people were exposed to previous infection. We don’t think it’s a question of virulence, but more a question of exposure to vaccination and prior infection, so we would be cautious to try and interpret that this is a less virulent strain. We’ll have to see what happens in other parts of the world before we make a call on this.

lee 5y ago
Additionally, the demographics of South Africa are different too. The median age is significantly lower than most Western countries.
foolfoolz 5y ago
a large percentage of the planets population has some immunity from previous infection or vaccination
rich_sasha 5y ago
It would be nice, and seemingly feasible, if they could compare to recent Delta infections (or even current one, seeing as both variants are present right now). Presumably any kind of acquired immunity is more comparable to 3 months ago vs. 21 months ago. It could still be that among people infected with Omicron, there is a larger proportion of vaccinated people, due to vaccines being less efficient, but that's still a better yardstick.
janmo 5y ago
Also, most people who would have died of Covid in South Africa already died during the Beta and then the Delta wave.
gjsman-1000 5y ago
I would suspect that most people who are were already vulnerable have already passed or built immunity if the virus is equally dangerous, resulting in a lower than equal death rate despite equivalent risk. Although... Can we never, not even once, be a little optimistic? To me, the news that we may be replacing COVID with a less severe strain is some of the best news of the year. COVID clearly isn't going away at this point, so by all means try to replace it with something weaker! EDIT: Also, on a side note, the actual doctor who found Omicron said it was less dangerous. She even described it as "extremely mild." https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgddw4/omicron-variant-interview-with-south-african-doctor https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgddw4/omicron-variant-inter... Needless to say, politicians and news hosts decided to completely ignore her description about it.
- JamesBarney 5y ago
  The doctor who found it, isn't a psychic. She doesn't have any information the rest of us don't. She's just describing her personal experience. And her experience is entirely consistent with Omicron appearing less virulent because it's infecting the previously infected and vaccinated who already have some degree of immunity.
  - mohanmcgeek 5y ago
    > because it's infecting the previously infected and vaccinated who already have some degree of immunity. The doctor isn't a psychic but how do _you_ know this
    - JamesBarney 5y ago
      How do I know "her experience is entirely consistent with Omicron appearing less virulent because it's infecting the previously infected and vaccinated who already have some degree of immunity." 1. We know that break through infections are less serious than infections to the unvaccinated and uninfected. 2. We determine virulence by # of hospitalizations (or other serious outcome) / # of infections 3. If we add more infections that don't have serious outcomes (because they are break through cases) that greatly increases the denominator without affecting the numerator. 4. This is how you could have Omicron be just as virulent as the original but look less virulent to a doctor. (Because of the break through cases) Does that make sense?
- bitwize 5y ago
  > Although... Can we never, not even once, be a little optimistic? No. This is a perfectly good crisis and to do so would be to let it go to waste.
  - tannisphere4 5y ago
    Someone out there is doing a study on meta-communication during COVID. The internalization of dominant narratives on social media is such an unspoken axiom, that merely SUGGESTING optimism results in a flurry of "we can't be sure!" finger-waves. One could hypothesize that those who derive greater self-esteem or self-worth from social dynamics would engage in behaviors where the long-run probability of increasing self-esteem is higher. In other words, the most adaptive posts on both sides of a social media debate would be those which: A) maximally increase self-esteem via ingroup loyalty, and B) cause the debate to be prolonged or not resolved, thereby increasing the duration of A. The "we can't be sure" defense in response to optimism is B.
elsherbini 5y ago
Another quote from the press-release of the study: >“Epidemiological tracking shows a steep trajectory of new infections, indicating Omicron’s rapid spread, but so far with a flatter trajectory of hospital admissions, possibly indicating lower severity,” explains Dr Noach. “This lesser severity could, however, be confounded by the high seroprevalence levels of SARS CoV-2 antibodies in the general South African population, especially following an extensive Delta wave of infections.” [1]. So, to actually make the comparison we'd need to compare new Delta infections with new Omicron infections time-matched, comparing people who were seronegative to start with. This would be really hard to do in South Africa since there is a high proportion of seropositive people. [1] https://www.discovery.co.za/corporate/news-room https://www.discovery.co.za/corporate/news-room
lanevorockz 5y ago
You can easily disprove your theory by using the number of vaccinated vs unvaccinated that were exposed. We are talking about severity and not spread, that is easily done.
- simonh 5y ago
  It's not the commenter's theory, it's the theory proposed in the article itself and that the commenter quoted. It's somewhat possible to account for the vaccination rate, but not really for resistance due to prior exposure because there are so many unknown variables in that.
nyokodo 5y ago
> It is possible that Omicron is just as severe and that the effect in the study is because a large percentage of the population had some immunity from a previous infection or vaccine. All viruses are severe if you have no immune protection from them. A small number of people die from the cold every year. The only thing that matters is how severe the infection is given the immunity you have.
- Sharlin 5y ago
  Well, yes, but if you’re naively comparing the severity of omicron infections to that of the previous strains then that’s just apples and oranges because the degree of immunization in the population is not the same, even if you only consider non-vaccinated people.
  - nyokodo 5y ago
    > severity of omicron infections to that of the previous strains then that’s just apples and oranges Comparing the severity of the viral strains on some objective scale, if that’s even possible, is at best an academic curiosity. Severity comparisons only really matter in giving us an accurate idea of how likely severe illness and death will be so that individuals, families, and public health officials can make any changes necessary.
notabee 5y ago
Additionally, severe illness and deaths are a lagging indicator. Cases are going to wildly outpace those figures because of how transmissable this is, until they don't. Deaths especially often take months from onset.
- simonh 5y ago
  Hence the credulous articles about how India was 'special' when the virus first started spreading there because there were so few fatalities. Turns out it was spreading incredibly fast so cases were surging, but it took a month or more for the wave of deaths to follow. But follow it absolutely did.
SippinLean 5y ago
> For individuals who have had COVID-19 previously, the risk of reinfection with Omicron is significantly higher, relative to prior variants. https://www.discovery.co.za/corporate/news-room https://www.discovery.co.za/corporate/news-room
- gjm11 5y ago
  Doesn't e.g. "a 73% relative risk of reinfection" mean being 0.73x as likely to be infected? These numbers show (as one would expect) that prior infection makes you less likely to get Omicron, and that prior infection with more recent strains does so more effectively. (Which might be because they're more Omicron-like, or because the infection was more recent. I'm guessing more the latter.)
xyproto 5y ago
There are plenty of people in intensive care, though.
- sjwalter 5y ago
  There always are. Average hospital staffing and resource levels mean at its minimum ICUs are at ~78% capacity. Come low vitamin-D season, January or February, most ICUs hit capacity every year. Google doesn't run its data centers at 5% capacity for the same reasons ICUs don't.
  - greedo 5y ago
    Sure. It's normal for hospitals to be delaying routine surgical procedures (where they make most of their money) due to not enough staff and beds. It's not just about ICU capacity, it's the overall hospital capacity. My small town has three primary hospitals, and all are seriously overloaded now.
skeeter2020 5y ago
It's also early days for the new variant. I would love and do hope this is true, but it's previously take weeks and months to start seeing fatalities after the first reported cases, so it may be too early to make this statement yet; waiting for the law of big numbers to kic in.
bingohbangoh 5y ago
Weird, I thought that the natural immunity from COVID-19 wasn't as strong as the vaccine.
colordrops 5y ago
Why is it ok to to be skeptical of findings if they are optimistic when it comes to covid, but if you challenge a pessimistic finding you are an anti-science anti-vaxxer piece of work? Let's be consistent here.
ineedasername 5y ago
The study adjusted for vaccine status [0] but was still comparing things to the initial wave in 2020, which is strange and I would like to know their justification for that. For a bit more of an apples-to-apples comparison they should be comparing omicron hospitalization & fatality rates to those of non-omicron variants over the same period of time. It doesn't look like they've done that, and I'm not aware of a study that has systematically done this (yet). It would certainly be a holiday-season gift if we shifted to a more virulent but less serious variant, but I'll hold out for a bit more information before I completely buy into that narrative. That can be difficult: people want to believe some good news here. Heck, my initial gut reaction was to push back against your objections but my career has trained me to resist that sort of thing. It won't be good for the erosion of trust in the media if they've jumped the gun on this and Omicron doesn't turn out the way we hope it will. https://www.discovery.co.za/corporate/news-room https://www.discovery.co.za/corporate/news-room
- JamesBarney 5y ago
  Did they also adjust for previous infection?
  - ineedasername 5y ago
    Not that I can tell (EDIT: They did, see comment further down) This seems to be research release by PR, not a published study. Although even if they adjusted for prior infections they should still be comparing comparable time periods. It is really odd if they didn't, and odd if they did do it but the results weren't included in the release. The initial 2020 wave is a reasonable baseline, but not a good measure of relative risk factors between variants right now especially because 2020 didn't include Delta.
  - ___q 5y ago
    Yes > For individuals who have had COVID-19 previously, the risk of reinfection with Omicron is significantly higher, relative to prior variants.
    - 5y ago
timr 5y ago
> The title is misleading. Just because you disagree with something does not make it "misleading". The question of prior immunity is not unknown, is an obvious question, and in fact is mentioned in the article and discussed in the study. The title accurately reflects the contents of the study. I have many issues with Washington Post's coverage of Covid, but this is actually fair.
- bluGill 5y ago
  That is still misleading. We don't actually have enough evidence to make such bold claims because the unknowns exist.
  - timr 5y ago
    Again: Just because you disagree with something does not make it "misleading". Your opinion is not truth. No research paper stands alone, and we never have all context on a given question. You disagree with the conclusion for reasons -- that's fine. Make your arguments, and see if you can convince people. That's how science works.
jmull 5y ago
The headline looks good to me. Few headlines work without context so what we want is for them to choose the most obvious, pertinent context. I think we all care a lot more about what Omicron means to us now, not what it would have meant if it were the main variant at the start of the pandemic. And, of course, anyone who cares about the topic should read past the headline.
toss1 5y ago
Yup, it is definitely too soon to be sure of anything like this headline, and that's the word of the leading epidemiologists I follow. Plus, this combination could be a lot WORSE for the hospital capacity situation. Even if the virulence/severity is only a fraction, the severe consequences will still grow exponentially, just further to the right on the curve. Meanwhile, the curve will grow a lot faster to the top of the graph because the greater exponential growth among both the unvaxed and the vaccinated. So, higher percentage of severe cases and lower transmisability would be less bad — fewer sever cases and much greater trensmissability is almost the worst case.
drcongo 5y ago
If you want misleading titles, try this [0] from the Guardian. Every single other news outlet covering this study managed an accurate headline. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/28/covid-vaccinated-likely-unjabbed-infect-cohabiters-study-suggests https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/28/covid-vaccinat...
fanzhang 5y ago
Technically anything is "possible" -- but what does the Bayesian weight of evidence say at this point?
sjg007 5y ago
Also the 20% increase in child hospitalizations is no joke.
epgui 5y ago
Biochemist here, you are spot on. I came here to say the same thing.
algo646464 5y ago
I don't think that it is misleading. The severity of a disease is relative to the current situation. For example, it could be the case that Omicron is actually less infectious than the original variant, when compared in the setting of 2020. It spreads faster today because, (i) because of preexisting immunity most cases are very mild, and so lots of people become unwitting carriers, (ii) people have gone back to normal behavior after vaccination, and (iii) the vaccines inhibit the other variants much more than Omnicron. So Omicron gets more opportunities to infect and spread. Of course, all this is just conjecture and could be true or false. What matters from a practical point of view is that, Omnicron is less severe in the general population today(for various reasons), as compared to the original strain back in 2020.
- croes 5y ago
  It is misleading if you compare a country with 80% infection rate with countries with much fewer infections. If the milder cases are because of previous infections it could be a hard hit for unvaccinated first timers.
- gruez 5y ago
  > I don't think that it is misleading. The severity of a disease is relative to the current situation. I think it is misleading. AIDS is much more survivable in "the current situation" because of various drug advances we made in the past few decades. Does that mean 2021 AIDS is "less severe" than 90s AIDS? I guess you could claim it's technically less severe, but the wording definitely suggests it's something about the virus, rather than the environment.
- themgt 5y ago
  So if we had: * variant "D" that kills 1% of the 20% of the population that isn't seropositive * variant "O" that kills 1% of the 20% of the population that isn't seropositive and 0.2% of the 80% of the population that is seropositive The takeaway is "good news everyone, variant O is less severe!"

by ufo 5y ago

lee 5y ago

Additionally, the demographics of South Africa are different too. The median age is significantly lower than most Western countries.

foolfoolz 5y ago

a large percentage of the planets population has some immunity from previous infection or vaccination

rich_sasha 5y ago

It would be nice, and seemingly feasible, if they could compare to recent Delta infections (or even current one, seeing as both variants are present right now). Presumably any kind of acquired immunity is more comparable to 3 months ago vs. 21 months ago. It could still be that among people infected with Omicron, there is a larger proportion of vaccinated people, due to vaccines being less efficient, but that's still a better yardstick.

janmo 5y ago

Also, most people who would have died of Covid in South Africa already died during the Beta and then the Delta wave.

gjsman-1000 5y ago

I would suspect that most people who are were already vulnerable have already passed or built immunity if the virus is equally dangerous, resulting in a lower than equal death rate despite equivalent risk. Although... Can we never, not even once, be a little optimistic? To me, the news that we may be replacing COVID with a less severe strain is some of the best news of the year. COVID clearly isn't going away at this point, so by all means try to replace it with something weaker! EDIT: Also, on a side note, the actual doctor who found Omicron said it was less dangerous. She even described it as "extremely mild." https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgddw4/omicron-variant-interview-with-south-african-doctor https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgddw4/omicron-variant-inter... Needless to say, politicians and news hosts decided to completely ignore her description about it.

JamesBarney 5y ago
The doctor who found it, isn't a psychic. She doesn't have any information the rest of us don't. She's just describing her personal experience. And her experience is entirely consistent with Omicron appearing less virulent because it's infecting the previously infected and vaccinated who already have some degree of immunity.
- mohanmcgeek 5y ago
  > because it's infecting the previously infected and vaccinated who already have some degree of immunity. The doctor isn't a psychic but how do _you_ know this
  - JamesBarney 5y ago
    How do I know "her experience is entirely consistent with Omicron appearing less virulent because it's infecting the previously infected and vaccinated who already have some degree of immunity." 1. We know that break through infections are less serious than infections to the unvaccinated and uninfected. 2. We determine virulence by # of hospitalizations (or other serious outcome) / # of infections 3. If we add more infections that don't have serious outcomes (because they are break through cases) that greatly increases the denominator without affecting the numerator. 4. This is how you could have Omicron be just as virulent as the original but look less virulent to a doctor. (Because of the break through cases) Does that make sense?
bitwize 5y ago
> Although... Can we never, not even once, be a little optimistic? No. This is a perfectly good crisis and to do so would be to let it go to waste.
- tannisphere4 5y ago
  Someone out there is doing a study on meta-communication during COVID. The internalization of dominant narratives on social media is such an unspoken axiom, that merely SUGGESTING optimism results in a flurry of "we can't be sure!" finger-waves. One could hypothesize that those who derive greater self-esteem or self-worth from social dynamics would engage in behaviors where the long-run probability of increasing self-esteem is higher. In other words, the most adaptive posts on both sides of a social media debate would be those which: A) maximally increase self-esteem via ingroup loyalty, and B) cause the debate to be prolonged or not resolved, thereby increasing the duration of A. The "we can't be sure" defense in response to optimism is B.

elsherbini 5y ago

Another quote from the press-release of the study: >“Epidemiological tracking shows a steep trajectory of new infections, indicating Omicron’s rapid spread, but so far with a flatter trajectory of hospital admissions, possibly indicating lower severity,” explains Dr Noach. “This lesser severity could, however, be confounded by the high seroprevalence levels of SARS CoV-2 antibodies in the general South African population, especially following an extensive Delta wave of infections.” [1]. So, to actually make the comparison we'd need to compare new Delta infections with new Omicron infections time-matched, comparing people who were seronegative to start with. This would be really hard to do in South Africa since there is a high proportion of seropositive people. [1] https://www.discovery.co.za/corporate/news-room https://www.discovery.co.za/corporate/news-room

lanevorockz 5y ago

You can easily disprove your theory by using the number of vaccinated vs unvaccinated that were exposed. We are talking about severity and not spread, that is easily done.

simonh 5y ago
It's not the commenter's theory, it's the theory proposed in the article itself and that the commenter quoted. It's somewhat possible to account for the vaccination rate, but not really for resistance due to prior exposure because there are so many unknown variables in that.

nyokodo 5y ago

> It is possible that Omicron is just as severe and that the effect in the study is because a large percentage of the population had some immunity from a previous infection or vaccine. All viruses are severe if you have no immune protection from them. A small number of people die from the cold every year. The only thing that matters is how severe the infection is given the immunity you have.

Sharlin 5y ago
Well, yes, but if you’re naively comparing the severity of omicron infections to that of the previous strains then that’s just apples and oranges because the degree of immunization in the population is not the same, even if you only consider non-vaccinated people.
- nyokodo 5y ago
  > severity of omicron infections to that of the previous strains then that’s just apples and oranges Comparing the severity of the viral strains on some objective scale, if that’s even possible, is at best an academic curiosity. Severity comparisons only really matter in giving us an accurate idea of how likely severe illness and death will be so that individuals, families, and public health officials can make any changes necessary.

notabee 5y ago

Additionally, severe illness and deaths are a lagging indicator. Cases are going to wildly outpace those figures because of how transmissable this is, until they don't. Deaths especially often take months from onset.

simonh 5y ago
Hence the credulous articles about how India was 'special' when the virus first started spreading there because there were so few fatalities. Turns out it was spreading incredibly fast so cases were surging, but it took a month or more for the wave of deaths to follow. But follow it absolutely did.

SippinLean 5y ago

> For individuals who have had COVID-19 previously, the risk of reinfection with Omicron is significantly higher, relative to prior variants. https://www.discovery.co.za/corporate/news-room https://www.discovery.co.za/corporate/news-room

gjm11 5y ago
Doesn't e.g. "a 73% relative risk of reinfection" mean being 0.73x as likely to be infected? These numbers show (as one would expect) that prior infection makes you less likely to get Omicron, and that prior infection with more recent strains does so more effectively. (Which might be because they're more Omicron-like, or because the infection was more recent. I'm guessing more the latter.)

xyproto 5y ago

There are plenty of people in intensive care, though.

sjwalter 5y ago
There always are. Average hospital staffing and resource levels mean at its minimum ICUs are at ~78% capacity. Come low vitamin-D season, January or February, most ICUs hit capacity every year. Google doesn't run its data centers at 5% capacity for the same reasons ICUs don't.
- greedo 5y ago
  Sure. It's normal for hospitals to be delaying routine surgical procedures (where they make most of their money) due to not enough staff and beds. It's not just about ICU capacity, it's the overall hospital capacity. My small town has three primary hospitals, and all are seriously overloaded now.

skeeter2020 5y ago

It's also early days for the new variant. I would love and do hope this is true, but it's previously take weeks and months to start seeing fatalities after the first reported cases, so it may be too early to make this statement yet; waiting for the law of big numbers to kic in.

bingohbangoh 5y ago

Weird, I thought that the natural immunity from COVID-19 wasn't as strong as the vaccine.

colordrops 5y ago

Why is it ok to to be skeptical of findings if they are optimistic when it comes to covid, but if you challenge a pessimistic finding you are an anti-science anti-vaxxer piece of work? Let's be consistent here.

ineedasername 5y ago

The study adjusted for vaccine status [0] but was still comparing things to the initial wave in 2020, which is strange and I would like to know their justification for that. For a bit more of an apples-to-apples comparison they should be comparing omicron hospitalization & fatality rates to those of non-omicron variants over the same period of time. It doesn't look like they've done that, and I'm not aware of a study that has systematically done this (yet). It would certainly be a holiday-season gift if we shifted to a more virulent but less serious variant, but I'll hold out for a bit more information before I completely buy into that narrative. That can be difficult: people want to believe some good news here. Heck, my initial gut reaction was to push back against your objections but my career has trained me to resist that sort of thing. It won't be good for the erosion of trust in the media if they've jumped the gun on this and Omicron doesn't turn out the way we hope it will. https://www.discovery.co.za/corporate/news-room https://www.discovery.co.za/corporate/news-room

JamesBarney 5y ago
Did they also adjust for previous infection?
- ineedasername 5y ago
  Not that I can tell (EDIT: They did, see comment further down) This seems to be research release by PR, not a published study. Although even if they adjusted for prior infections they should still be comparing comparable time periods. It is really odd if they didn't, and odd if they did do it but the results weren't included in the release. The initial 2020 wave is a reasonable baseline, but not a good measure of relative risk factors between variants right now especially because 2020 didn't include Delta.
- ___q 5y ago
  Yes > For individuals who have had COVID-19 previously, the risk of reinfection with Omicron is significantly higher, relative to prior variants.
  - 5y ago

timr 5y ago

> The title is misleading. Just because you disagree with something does not make it "misleading". The question of prior immunity is not unknown, is an obvious question, and in fact is mentioned in the article and discussed in the study. The title accurately reflects the contents of the study. I have many issues with Washington Post's coverage of Covid, but this is actually fair.

bluGill 5y ago
That is still misleading. We don't actually have enough evidence to make such bold claims because the unknowns exist.
- timr 5y ago
  Again: Just because you disagree with something does not make it "misleading". Your opinion is not truth. No research paper stands alone, and we never have all context on a given question. You disagree with the conclusion for reasons -- that's fine. Make your arguments, and see if you can convince people. That's how science works.

jmull 5y ago

The headline looks good to me. Few headlines work without context so what we want is for them to choose the most obvious, pertinent context. I think we all care a lot more about what Omicron means to us now, not what it would have meant if it were the main variant at the start of the pandemic. And, of course, anyone who cares about the topic should read past the headline.

toss1 5y ago

Yup, it is definitely too soon to be sure of anything like this headline, and that's the word of the leading epidemiologists I follow. Plus, this combination could be a lot WORSE for the hospital capacity situation. Even if the virulence/severity is only a fraction, the severe consequences will still grow exponentially, just further to the right on the curve. Meanwhile, the curve will grow a lot faster to the top of the graph because the greater exponential growth among both the unvaxed and the vaccinated. So, higher percentage of severe cases and lower transmisability would be less bad — fewer sever cases and much greater trensmissability is almost the worst case.

drcongo 5y ago

If you want misleading titles, try this [0] from the Guardian. Every single other news outlet covering this study managed an accurate headline. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/28/covid-vaccinated-likely-unjabbed-infect-cohabiters-study-suggests https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/28/covid-vaccinat...

fanzhang 5y ago

Technically anything is "possible" -- but what does the Bayesian weight of evidence say at this point?

sjg007 5y ago

Also the 20% increase in child hospitalizations is no joke.

epgui 5y ago

Biochemist here, you are spot on. I came here to say the same thing.

algo646464 5y ago

I don't think that it is misleading. The severity of a disease is relative to the current situation. For example, it could be the case that Omicron is actually less infectious than the original variant, when compared in the setting of 2020. It spreads faster today because, (i) because of preexisting immunity most cases are very mild, and so lots of people become unwitting carriers, (ii) people have gone back to normal behavior after vaccination, and (iii) the vaccines inhibit the other variants much more than Omnicron. So Omicron gets more opportunities to infect and spread. Of course, all this is just conjecture and could be true or false. What matters from a practical point of view is that, Omnicron is less severe in the general population today(for various reasons), as compared to the original strain back in 2020.

croes 5y ago
It is misleading if you compare a country with 80% infection rate with countries with much fewer infections. If the milder cases are because of previous infections it could be a hard hit for unvaccinated first timers.
gruez 5y ago
> I don't think that it is misleading. The severity of a disease is relative to the current situation. I think it is misleading. AIDS is much more survivable in "the current situation" because of various drug advances we made in the past few decades. Does that mean 2021 AIDS is "less severe" than 90s AIDS? I guess you could claim it's technically less severe, but the wording definitely suggests it's something about the virus, rather than the environment.
themgt 5y ago
So if we had: * variant "D" that kills 1% of the 20% of the population that isn't seropositive * variant "O" that kills 1% of the 20% of the population that isn't seropositive and 0.2% of the 80% of the population that is seropositive The takeaway is "good news everyone, variant O is less severe!"