> If Omicron is 10x more virulent

I think you mean “10x more infectious” as virulence is how serious/deadly/damaging the infection is. Omicron is no more virulent and maybe considerably less virulent than previous strains.

So I was a little confused about the definition myself, because when I looked it up a while back my iPhone dictionary suggested both as a definition.

Is the key difference that in an infectious disease expert context, virulent means severe and infectious means contagious?

I always thought virulent was ability to spread because that’s what viruses do, but that was way before the pandemic.

correct. it's confusing terminology, but virulent means severe. so MERS is very virulent (30% mortality) but not very infectious (R0<1). SARS-COV-2 is the opposite.

You’re correct, brain was working a bit slower late at night -_-

Lockdowns give you a linear factor to flatten the rise of new cases that is relevant even for an exponential curve.

Some said that vaccination proved a 70% protection to infect someone. Makes sense since the time someone can infect others is shortened because of the quicker immune response. I still believe this to be a noble lie however, since we should have seen an effect, but the curves rose just as quickly in vaccinated/unvaccinated countries and as fast as in the first wave.

How do you know the masks and lockdowns didn't help? Things might have much worse if not for the masks and lockdowns?