You are kind of right mate, a PCR test itself wont tell you what variant the same way an antigen test wont, but a sample taken during a PCR test can be sent to the lab for sequencing - but that is a separate process. Not every sample taken for a PCR test is taken for sequencing, its mostly done on a sample basis to look at trends. Sequencing is done in a specialist lab and they couldn't cope with the volumes of the amount of tests being done in total every day and it wouldn't really serve a purpose anyway, beyond analysing trends. For example if a sample of samples are sent for sequencing and they come back as 95% omicron it tells us omicron is now dominant.
I think the mental shift, is away from case numbers and deaths, while you will be keeping an eye on both, you have to accept omicron inevitable, but we are in a different spot than last year with vaccines and boosters without doubt the anecdotal and early data, isnt the worst case scenarios. But the huge worry at the moment is the transmissiblity, rate of spread, exponential growth and capacity in services. Essentially they dont want this to spread wildly quickly and are trying to slow as much as it can, the fear is the surge and capacity in health services, thats what measures are trying to protect, thats the risk, but omicron is inevitable and here.
So case numbers will tell us a bit in regard to growth, exponential growth and the likely impact on services. Im not really sure case numbers and deaths were the two things, to focus on anyway, there are many data sets to weigh, and each tell us all a bit, i think governments and media tend to focus on case numbers and deaths when communicating with the public. A better metric and the one i look at is the positivity rate of swabs as per test done, that gives a much better indication than case number of the prev lance of the virus in the community, but not one stat rules them all, nor should one be totally ignored or disregarded either, one often feeds or compliments another, in my view, sure why would you or what would the value be in ignoring any of the data.
Xmas might be a mess and Jan/Feb could be hairy but we will be reviewing things closely, but id personally hope to get to March without a lock down if we're clever. Id hope we are doing enough in terms of mitigation and restrictions to enable society to remain open - with perhaps tweaking restrictions here and there.
