We will see in just a few weeks whether the projection of 200,000 Omicron cases a day comes to pass. Maybe it will or maybe it will prove to be as wildly wrong as so many other predictions have been, writes Joe Hildebrand.
In the increasingly realistic motion picture"Team America: World Police", security chief Spottswoode has the following telling exchange with new recruit Gary Johnston: Spottswoode:"Really? Have you seen a man eat his own head?" I thought this was the final word on the matter, but after reading Tuesday's modelling of COVID numbers from the Doherty Institute of up to 200,000 new Omicron cases a day causing 10,000 ICU admissions - I feel like I really haven't seen...
And that is not computer modelling, that is real world data from the Federal Department of Health, obtained by The Australian this week. In fact, Professor Blakely's conclusion is that Omicron is at worst only half as dangerous as Delta and possibly as little as one-tenth as bad. Little wonder that Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly came out the morning after the modelling was released and called it"highly misleading".
We will see in just a few weeks whether the projection of 200,000 Omicron cases a day resulting in 10,000 ICU cases actually comes to pass. It is worth noting that while case numbers in NSW surged by 2,000 to over 5,700 today, ICU admissions rose by just five to 45 -- and again, the Federal Health Department data suggests these are unlikely to be Omicron cases.
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