Omicron has a mild reputation. The numbers show otherwise.
The second is the shifting geography of the pandemic. The Northeast experienced 215 deaths per 100,000 residents before the emergence of variants. Later, variants killed a disproportionate number of people in the South—158 per 100,000 residents. That’s something epidemiologists have understood in other ways; New York City experienced the highest per-capita death tolls of the entire pandemic in April 2020, while southern states experienced prolonged outbreaks over 2021.
The authors write in the report that the analysis was intended to observe deaths, rather than explain their causes. But categorizing deaths by variant without incorporating other explanations, Hassig says, risks overemphasizing the role of variants in each wave. Deaths over the last six months are as much a product of undervaccination—among other policy outcomes—as they are of Omicron..