(Note: The numbers above, if you can make them out, and those below are the daily average on Jan. 6)

"We have a less severe variant, plus many are vaccinated, but evidence suggests the vaccines are not as good at preventing infection with Omicron as they were against Delta.”-Dr. Shama Cash-Goldwasser.

Oh yeah, the vaccines worked GREAT preventing infection by Delta! *NOT*
...
The sharp rise in cases in many states could be followed by sharp falls, as observed in South Africa...

 

Don't like "could", Quasis! Don't be squishy fucks! Anything "could." Do you mean "reasonably"? I'll take that correction. So that got me thinking.

                                                        The Idea of South Africa

Note the vax rates. Average daily cases in South Africa rose from 756 on Nov.24 to Omicron-peak 23,437 Dec 17, twenty-three days. They are now (Jan. 6) at 8,289. Compare SA's cases O-graph with the US. Compare the numbers: There were an average 83,217 cases in the US on Nov. 30. On Jan. 6 the number was 611,389. If you use Nov. 30 as the beginning of the O-wave in the US then we're already 38 days in and it is still rising. Note our vax rates:

With more than double the vax rates in SA the US O-wave is lasting much longer. In a word, we SUCK.

A Times guest (I inadvertently typed "guess" initially (which could be Freudian)) essayist is pooh-poohing the idea of South Africa:

As we move deeper into January, it will be important to monitor whether the steep rise of Omicron cases is followed by a rapid decline, as has been seen in South Africa. This would make the Omicron wave intense but short-lived. However, a rapid decline is not guaranteed. South Africa has a younger population compared to the United States, and younger people are more likely to have mild, undetected infections. South Africa is also in summer, which is less favorable for virus transmission.

South Africa is also LESS THAN ONE-HALF VAXED COMPARED TO THE US, pooh-pooher. Americans think we are the shit when we're shit. This Exceptionalist advises to look to Mother England rather than SA, just as Walk-Balk Walensky sniffed at The Idea of India during Delta (which Walk-Back missed in the US).

                                                                         The Idea of India

India's experience with Delta (which was, of course, irrelevant to the U.S. since the U.S. was so far more advanced and so much more highly vaxed) started about March 6, 2021 at 16,295 ave.cases/day and peaked on May 8 with 391,232. Sixty-four days from beginning to peak; From Delta's Dawn on the Subcontinent to its trough on about Aug 22 (31,970 cases) was one hundred-six days. India's ave. daily death peak during Delta when virtually no one in the country was vaxed was 4,190 on May 23..

The US experience was not so quick. Cases bottomed out on June 21 at 11,179. Delta's peak was Sept. 5 with 162,631 cases. Seventy-six days from beginning to peak. From beginning to trough on Oct. 25 ( 69,936 cases ) was 126 days. U.S. Delta deaths peaked on Sept. 24 at 2,099 with over 70% vaxed.

...

“We’ve had a month with Omicron and there’s just still a lot we don’t know.”-Janet Hamilton, the executive director of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists.
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National hospitalization data notably does not include up-to-date measures of severe illness, such as the number of people on ventilators or their length of stay. (Federal data tracks some of this, but it is about two months behind.)

Americans are just So. Lame.!
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There is hope that vaccination coverage, improved medical treatment and the milder characteristics of the Omicron variant will mean that fewer...death[s].
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Experience throughout the pandemic shows it takes at least three weeks after an increase in cases to see a resulting increase in deaths, which may explain why death counts have risen only slightly so far.

Trends in deaths lag behind cases and hospitalizations by weeks because of the time it takes for people to become seriously ill and the time needed to complete and file death records. This lag varies by state and often becomes longer in times when there are more deaths, or when a case surge is overwhelming the public health system, as it is now.
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Deaths can generally be predicted by looking at hospitalizations and counting backward by three weeks, suggesting that deaths will almost double in the next three weeks, said Dr. David Dowdy, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. But it's still possible that deaths will not rise as sharply as cases and hospitalizations have, he added.

That's wrong. The reporters on this article don't know what they are talking about there. Counting back on hospitalizations three weeks from Jan. 6 (to Dec. 17) gives 68,880. Assigning that number to deaths three weeks hence isn't doubling Jan. 6th's 1,405 deaths, it's increasing them over 49-fold. If you count deaths backward three weeks you get 1,294, which also is not double, it is in fact lower than Jan. 6th's 1,405. The reporters are missing the H-D ratio: what fraction of people who are hospitalized with COVID end up dying from it. How can we massage this to come up with the "right" number? Deaths to "almost double" three weeks from now. So, ~2,700 should be dead ~Jan. 28. What if we use the H-number three weeks ago, 68,880 and the D-number Jan. 6, 1,405, wouldn't that give us the most-current ratio? That's 49.02. Then if we take that ratio and apply it to Jan. 6th's H-number Why the fuck am I doing this?. 116,029, you get 2,367 as the D-number ~Jan. 28. 2,367 doesn't really qualify as "almost double 1,405. Now: If the reporters misunderstood Dr. Dowdy and he told them two things which they garbled, that the H-D lag is about three weeks--Now forget H's entirely!--and go back and count what deaths were three weeks ago, then add that number to the current...Which makes no sense to me...But it does give you a number, 2699, that qualifies as "almost double" the Jan. 6 average of 1,405. Times reporters, fucking explain yourselves. Geez, these people.

...more people are getting hospitalized for milder illness,” Dr. Dowdy said. “So I actually anticipate that deaths will not reach quite that level.”