Optimism on the part of news outlets can be dangerous here. It may cause people to prematurely relax their precautions, and if it turns out to be wrong it will

Optimism on the part of news outlets can be dangerous here. It may cause people to prematurely relax their precautions, and if it turns out to be wrong it will further erode trust in media outlets that jumped the gun. Considering the study was comparing Omicron to the initial wave of 2020 infections (a strange choice) I am not confident in the results. If it turns out to be correct, it will be more of an accident than accurate analysis. As for the doctor that discovered it: Here experience with infected individuals is anecdotal data. She has not, to my knowledge, been involved in systematic studies. She is a general practitioner so here experience with this has been on the ground, primarily with the patients she has seen. Certainly this is useful but it is not a replacement for well-formed studies. Medical research and epidemiology are distinctly different activities from medical practice, even if many people involved in both have a medical degree.