As far as I understand that's not likely because the it would be maladaptive for the virus. If there were a really deadly variant in South Africa, then 1) it w

As far as I understand that's not likely because the it would be maladaptive for the virus. If there were a really deadly variant in South Africa, then 1) it wouldn't spread as fast because viruses need live hosts to spread and 2) people would change their behavior before it reached the entire world. That is, Omicron is mild so people likely didn't change their behavior too much. If you saw a lot of people around you going to the hospital, you would likely stop going out so much. (Some people knew many people going to the hospital during the pandemic; others saw none for years. The infection was very unevenly distributed. On HN I expect most people are remote workers and know few people getting infected.)