Analysis – Saturday, 1 January 2022

Strong Increase Of Infections
But hospitalisations and deaths increase more mildly, if at all

As the year ends, incidences sound alarming but they are actually a lot higher. On the graphs, notice the dotted lines of the actual daily numbers and projections and how much higher they often are than the reported ones, particularly in Europe and Tunisia.

Likewise, Germany's reporting issues result in the second week of falling numbers while their neighbours see them rising. Numbers are more likely to similar to those in Spain and France.

With every day passing, the evidence seems to harden that Omicron is less harmful to an individual's health and there is thus a chance that ICUs (ITUs) will not be overwhelmed by an onslaught of patients. Nor will undertakers run out of caskets. But not all is good. Because the infections require people to quarantine and hence cause labour shortages, which in turn could affect critical infrastructure, including health care facilities. Thus the ICUs could be overwhelmed again. And we'd be back to square one. Plus, we still do not know if Omicron causes fewer cases of long-Covid.

So, for the time being, prudence is the word. Projections indicate that things could go better by April at the latest.