The severity of Omicron appears anecdotally less than influenza, despite influenza causing more deaths annually and lacking effective treatments compared to COVID-19.

“influenza which is about as bad as omicron marty correct me if i'm wrong oh worse influence is worse than omicron i mean you're talking about the study 52 000 people one death i mean i haven't got omicron yet i've been trying actually super annoyed that i don't have it yet because i feel like i'm missing out on a booster shot or something but when i look at all of my patients and friends who have had omicron yeah i would say it certainly anecdotally appears far less severe than influenza and yet when you get influenza you don't have a drug that you could take if it gets really bad the way we have fluvoxamine and the other more recent pfizer and work drugs”