Omicron is the second most contagious virus in the world. It has the ability to poof out of the labor pool 10% ~ 20% of teachers, aux staff, nurses and doctors for somewhere between a week and a year (long covid), in any given week.
This is the case here in Canada in my sibling's hospital right now, and in my sibling's kid's school.
Omicron also has the ability to overflow hospitals even when they've pre-planned with a solid buffer of excess capacity. Most hospitals here in Canada didn't have any such buffer to begin with. For 2 years they've been run ragged, so today the backlog is worse than ever.
Omicron is a new problem we didn't have to deal with before.
With Flu, you can get away with letting some % of the population get it in any given flu season, because it won't deprive your hospital system (or your school) of 20% of its staff for weeks or months on end.
This is all independent of who does or doesn't end up dying from the virus.
This is the case here in Canada in my sibling's hospital right now, and in my sibling's kid's school.
Omicron also has the ability to overflow hospitals even when they've pre-planned with a solid buffer of excess capacity. Most hospitals here in Canada didn't have any such buffer to begin with. For 2 years they've been run ragged, so today the backlog is worse than ever.
Omicron is a new problem we didn't have to deal with before.
With Flu, you can get away with letting some % of the population get it in any given flu season, because it won't deprive your hospital system (or your school) of 20% of its staff for weeks or months on end.
This is all independent of who does or doesn't end up dying from the virus.