“It’s a fallacy that viruses become milder.”

[Teaching3bears]

I’ve heard epidemiologists say this lately.  What do they mean, given that Omicron is milder in most cases?

Many people are hoping that once Omicron is finished sweeping through, the pandemic will mostly be over.  

[bolt.]

They mean it's a fallacy that viruses trend continually milder and milder, and that each step will be a step down. On the contrary, mutations are random: some variations get milder, and others get more severe, and you can't tell what is coming based on what happened last.

They mean "Just because Omicron is milder than Delta does not mean that the next one will be milder still."

It's to counter the idea that pandemics "wind down" predictably. Some people take the existence of the "mild" Omicron to indicate that things are mostly over. And they might be -- and hope is not a bad thing -- but the mildness of Omicron is neither evidence that it is, nor evidence that it isn't. The next variant could be anything whatsoever. Nobody's in charge of the variations. They don't happen strategically or intelligently. Viruses don't "try" to do anything. There is no trend.

(Plus, the definition of "milder" is so subjective: Yes, Omicron's symptoms are milder (especially in a vaccinated population) but it's transmissibility is very severe. And who says it's milder (than Delta?) for unvaccinated people? Do we have studies on that? All I mean is that "Mildness" is not exactly a trackable metric. "You" have to ask about specific criteria if you want to track a trend.)

[Tanaqui]

1 hour ago, Teaching3bears said:

I’ve heard epidemiologists say this lately.  What do they mean, given that Omicron is milder in most cases?

Many people are hoping that once Omicron is finished sweeping through, the pandemic will mostly be over.  

 

The bolded is the fallacy right there. You're looking at one random example of one virus at one stage of development, and concluding "Viruses become milder over time" and then wondering why epidemiologists are saying something different.

Omicron may be "milder" than delta for some given definition of "mild", but maybe the next variant will be more severe than either of them.

As for what "many people" are hoping, you can hope all you want, but wishing and hoping doesn't make things true.

[Ausmumof3]

https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/coronacast/is-omicron-the-last-variant/13704620
 

Coronacast had some good discussion around this today if you’re interested in listening or reading the transcript. I have to be honest it was a bit depressing so maybe don’t listen if you already have pandemic blues.