Daily new Covid-19 cases per million population (rolling 7-day average) in Australia:
01 - 12 - 2021 53.82 31 - 12 - 2021 619.41 10 - 01 - 2022 3,333.69
The chart illustrating the trend from the start of 2020 to now illustrates the drastic change. New Zealand statistics added for comparison.
Anyone thinking the impending death toll won't be too bad because the severity of the Omicron strain's effects are not as severe as those of previous strains is deluding themselves. What the new strain lacks in severity will be more than made up by the sheer number of infections. This has already manifested itself in the state I lice in - South Australia - and the avalanche has not really started yet. From the beginning of the pandemic to the 27th Dec 2021 the Coronavirus caused 4 deaths. Between the 28th and now we had another 22, 18 of them in the last four days. Given the typical lag between infection and death of about three weeks and the rocketing increase of new infections I am not looking forward to the next couple of months at all.