Rich, vaccine-abundant nations that had once hoped the pandemic was over are now recalculating. Some worry they are overreacting. Speaking to Britain’s Sky News this week, the head of South Africa’s Medical Association warned that Britain created “hysteria” by overreacting to the threat of the variant.

“You need to take precautionary measures, you have to be prepared but don’t hype it up,” Angelique Coetzee said on Tuesday.

Others have even argued that the spread of omicron could signal the final days of the coronavirus outbreak, pointing to some signs that the variant may produce less serious illness than the current globally dominant variant, delta. Some even see hope in the sharp rise of cases: Conservative outlets like the National Review are wondering if omicron is “not that scary after all” while Wall Street analysts have said it “could accelerate the end of the pandemic.”

The argument rests on the theory that the coronavirus would become more transmissible and less deadly as it evolves, as was the case with the influenza virus that caused the 1918 flu pandemic. Are these positions fair? Are countries overreacting to omicron? It is still too early to say for sure, but consider these three points.