Evidence that Omicron causes mild disease from the UK, and evidence that the hoopla about pediatric hospitalizations is hogwash

This graph is from the Telegraph 2 days ago, and it shows that hospitalizations and deaths have not paralleled the rise in cases for Omicron, as they did for earlier waves.

The second graph shows hospitalizations over time by age from today's NY Times.  The yellow line is pediatric ages.  While I have not posted a "cases" graph, cases have shot up, while hospitalizations and deaths have not shot up proportionately, as happened in the US with prior waves.

According to the December 29 NYT, re pediatric Omicron, “I think the important story to tell here is that severity is way down and the risk for significant severe disease seems to be lower,” said Dr. David Rubin, a researcher at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia...

Infected children remain far less likely to become ill, compared with adults. But across the country last week, an average of 1,200 children each day have been hospitalized with the coronavirus, up from 800 at the end of November, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. (Some of those children arrived at the hospital with other medical issues.)

Those numbers are well below the peaks reached last September [get a magnifying glass and see if you can find the September peak in yellow on the graph above], although experts also fear a wave of pediatric hospitalizations in the coming weeks...