The South African omicron outbreak has been reported as being benign and perhaps it is relatively so but the feature that we need to focus on is the spike in both cases and hospitalisations. I think this wave is going to be much smaller in hospitalisations but rather than being spread out over months they are going to come all at once.
I think we now need to look at London. We have missed the boat in regards to lockdown. In London we are already on the explosive exponential growth phase. Even if you stop all traffic and work, so many people have it now. They will just take it home to their households. The government may lock down nationally but I think it is too late to have a significant effect.
This is data I downloaded for London (NHS web-site, and gov.uk) for hospital admissions, and new reported cases by specimen date.
I don't like the look of these curves. The covid infection go into exponential explosive growth on the 12th December but it looks to me that the hospital admissions are tracking the omicron uptick. The link is not entirely broken. I think that this week the London hospitals are going to feel the effects. The surge will start this week and last for a fortnight. A lockdown would work to flatten the peak but if the peak is below capacity it is pointless. It is too late for London.
I don't think it will be as bad as previous waves but it's going to come all at once. I have no idea how much slack/headroom the London hospitals have to absorb the numbers.
I am carrying on and hoping the Boxing Day football is on but not expecting it to be because the backdrop will be a short-lived emergency and the authorities will be cautious. They probably know its too late already. When it doubles every 1.5 days, you can't be late if you are going into lockdown. We are late. Look at London, gradual rise then bang. It may be the right decision to do nothing if the hospitals can handle the peak. This graph does not tell you what the peak will be. It just hints at an existing link between cases and admissions and shows the wave of infection that has just hit London.