Case numbers are important, but they are not the whole story.
So while right now our national strategy is necessarily about suppressing the virus and vaccinating as many people as possible, a one-eyed focus on just case numbers overlooks the fact that less people are getting seriously ill, let alone dying.
Shifting our focus from just case numbers, to actually looking at how many people are becoming seriously ill and requiring hospitalisation will be increasingly what matters. After all, this is how we manage all other infectious diseases.
This is what living with Covid is all about. The case numbers will likely rise when we soon begin to open up. That is inevitable.
But our focus needs to be on the rate of people being hospitalised. That’s the measure that should now start to guide our response.
Rising cases need not impact our plan to reopen, and reopen as soon we can. I know it seems pretty dark now, but it’s always darkest before the dawn, and dawn’s coming. So please hang in there.