If it's known that insider trading is allowed, wouldn't that make some people more reluctant to bet? Would this reduce the liquidity of the market enough to be damaging overall?

I think Anubhav is referring to this lecture. I agree it's a helpful, simpler explanation of  VOI too.

If Omicron really is off in a complete different direction than any of the previous dominant strains, then that is importantly good news. It means that Omicron did not take Alpha, Beta or Delta and then add additional changes to make things worse. Instead, it did different things.

If that’s true, then it means the virus has gotten stuck via hill climbing at various points, and there’s a chance we don’t have to worry as much about Variant A → Variant B → Variant C → Variant D.

Why are the odds higher that a new variant that emerges from the current dominant strain would be more deadly than a new variant that emerged from something else? Especially since the current dominant strain is now Omicron rather than Delta.