CDC Omicron study

New CDC study shows that Omicron is about 10 times less lethal than Delta.
This makes Omicron at least 2-3 times less dangerous than Flu, even for an unvaccinated elderly person.

However, it seems that the study does not take into account the strong evidence that the percentage of asymptomatic/unknown cases in Omicron is substantially higher than in Delta. South Africa, for example, has a low testing rate and therefore reported a wave of Omicron cases similar in its size to its Delta wave, while France, the UK, Denmark and other countries with a much higher testing rate, are reporting much higher case counts..

Since the number of known Omicron cases seems to have particularly strong dependence on testing rates, and since testing rates in the US are relatively low, it is likely that a large share of the Omicron cases in the US went undetected. In other word, the CDC study which was based on known cases, actually overestimated the Omicron's virulence.

If it this is so, then the real infection fatality rate of Omicron is likely to be even lower.

The study:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.01.11.22269045v1.full.pdf
CDC's director, Rochelle Walensky's announcement:

Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH @CDCDirector

NEW: Study on severity of those infected with the #OmicronVariant compared to the #DeltaVariant: ⬇️53% less risk of symptomatic hospitalization ⬇️74% less risk of ICU admission ⬇️91% less risk of death 0⃣Omicron patients required mechanical ventilation bit.ly/3GiRpBC