The latest statistics from South Africa reveal that intensive care admissions for the Omicron Covid variant are running at just a third of what they were at the same point in the country’s Delta wave. The figures come following the chair of the South African Medical Association (SAMA) reporting that Omicron’s symptoms are mostly “very, very mild” and could treated at home. With even US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci now admitting the new variant is “almost certainly” not more severe than Delta, the question that urgently needs to be asked is a very simple one: why is global tension being raised to a state of panic?