Thread by @DrEricDing

⚠️BREAKING—Imperial College study finds #Omicron could be **just as severe** as the Delta strain, according to early findings from researchers at Imperial College London.

➡️All those who said “it’s mild” need to think about how many they have endangered.
ft.com/content/489316…

2) “The study finds no evidence of Omicron having lower severity than Delta, judged by either the proportion of people testing positive who report symptoms, or by the proportion of cases seeking hospital care after infection,” said the research team, led by Prof Neil Ferguson

3) Moreover, other London hospitalization data shows it could be sending patients to hospitals a bit faster, even if same severity.

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1471777316225310729

4) Is it just UK data? No, Denmark 🇩🇰 hospitalizations also point to faster hospitalizations. And maybe even more hospitalizations as time goes on 👇

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1471792775356166152

5) don’t forget that Delta already is much more severe than the original Wuhan strain. Many studies show 2-4x— one Singapore study says 4x more severe than 2020 original strain. So even if we hypothetically say “milder” case is semi-milder—its likely no better than Wuhan strain.

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1414360616983220233

6) Don’t forget the other worrisome property of #Omicron is its high evasiveness against 2-shots of different vaccines, and evasiveness against convalescent plasma of past survivors. Without boosters, people just not protected enough anymore. That’s the real source of trouble. 👇

https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1471035675382358018

7) Moreover, “The new report from the [report] estimates that the risk of reinfection with the Omicron variant is 5.4x greater than that of the Delta variant. This implies that the protection against reinfection by Omicron by past infection may be 19%.”
imperial.ac.uk/news/232698/mo…

8) Let’s not forget — “omicron is mild” is 2021 = “it’s just the flu” of 2020. Learn from history - don’t repeat the same damn dismissive downplaying mistakes please 🙏

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1470688302965604358

9) Omicron is also replicating a lot faster in bronchial tubes, though slightly slower in the lung. But if the virus has more concentration in the bronchus, it still sets up more virus available to infect more parts of the lung.

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1471205289328365574

10) Short lesson how exponential #Omicron math will work—even if we hypothetically set it extreme at 1/10th as lethal—but just merely 2x more contagious (ignoring it’s likely 4-6x)… you will ultimately have way more deaths even if 90% milder but more contagious—EXPONENTIAL MATH!

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1469723185084084225

11) And it’s doubtful if that much milder, if at all. 🇬🇧 study above that found no significant difference in severity for #Omicron vs Delta (odds ratio of 0.95)—OR excluded anything remotely close to 1/10th the risk. “Milder” is not big driver versus exponential contagiousness!⚠️