What Omicron Does, and How It Does It

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the evolution and characteristics of the Omicron variant of COVID-19, revealing its complex dynamics and suggesting it is more contagious but less dangerous than previous strains like Delta.

Contribution

It extends previous evolutionary analysis to Omicron, highlighting its unique synchronized dynamics and contrasting contagiousness with its danger level.

Findings

Omicron has more elaborate synchronized dynamics.

Omicron is likely more contagious than Delta.

Omicron is probably less dangerous than Delta.

Abstract

Improvement of protein function by evolution (natural selection) is expected on general grounds, but even with the modern database positive proof has remained a difficult problem for theory. Here we extend our recent analysis of the evolution of CoV-1 to much more contagious CoV-2, to Omicron, which appears to be qualitatively different from other recent strains like Delta. Overall the synchronized dynamics of Omicron is more elaborate than CoV-2 or its variants like Delta. The surprising result is that while Omicron could be more contagious than even Delta, it is probably much less dangerous