Omicron appears to be much milder. It causes severe disease less frequently than dealta or any previous variants. That's partly because the layers of immunity, which have been built up through the population are breaking the link between infections and hospitalizations. But not that many people will get severely ill as they are protected from vaccines and from having had covet in the past.
The lightning-fast spread of a seemingly milder coronavirus variant may represent a shift from pandemic to endemic; we ask how that would change global responses. Concern about video-game addictiveness is as old as video games themselves—but the business models of modern gaming may be magnifying the problem. And newly publicised photographs shed light on Bangladesh’s brutal war for independence.
For full access to print, digital and audio editions of The Economist, subscribe here www.economist.com/intelligenceoffer