In earlier waves, rising death rates would follow an increase in cases; the impact of rising cases on death rates could be seen visually and validated statistically. Deaths would follow cases upward, and peak roughly two to three weeks after new cases began trending downward. With Omicron, however, we not only don’t see the rise in death rates that were associated with the first waves, but we actually see a continuing decline in death rates, despite a radical increase in cases.
Whether or not this breakdown of the relationship between Omicron cases and deaths will play out in other countries, like the U.S., is hard to say. Omicron is currently more prevalent in the U.K. than in the U.S., and the U.K. has far better screening rates, both of which could alter the outcome in the U.S.
It’s still, of course, early days. While it is possible that death rates due to Omicron may rise later, at the moment in the U.K., Covid-19 daily cases no longer meaningfully link to deaths.
An Omicron oddity: The number of cases doesn't predict the number of deaths