...and after posting I was thinking about it again... and I did...

...and after posting I was thinking about it again... and I did as you suggested and checked the numbers...

Major covid issues might not come through for 3-7 days after the infection and therefore you cannot compare todays hospitalisations to the number of people testing positive for infection today... Also, at the time of the start to your numbers (December 1), Omicron wasn't the most prevalent strain of the virus. This is starting to change and as pointed out the doubling rate (1.5 - 3 days for Omicron) is much quicker than Delta.

So lets expand on the numbers you have provided (and much appreciated too).

New Cases
19 Dec - 2,566 against 6 Dec - 208 cases (lowest point). That is a 233% increase in the daily increase in new cases.

Hospitalisations
19 Dec - 227 against 6 Dec - 152 cases which is a 49% increase in numbers. A nearly 50% increase in this number isn't alarming I guess...

At this point it is probably important to look at active cases. All the data here is accessible from
Recoveries and Active cases for COVID-19 in Australia | covid19data.com.au


(Yeah I cant see a problem with NSW numbers - looking like its going to be manageable)


(Vic increasing but not as exponential as NSW yet their hospitalisations are growing much faster - anyone has thoughts on this?)

NSW active cases (header provided for clarity)

		Active cases
1	19/12/2021	14,050
2	18/12/2021	11,760
3	17/12/2021	9,659
4	16/12/2021	7,647
5	15/12/2021	6,233
6	14/12/2021	5,179
7	13/12/2021	4,677
8	12/12/2021	4,366
9	11/12/2021	4,058
10	10/12/2021	3,683
11	9/12/2021	3,372
12	8/12/2021	3,196
13	7/12/2021	3,060
14	6/12/2021	3,036
15	5/12/2021	3,043
16	4/12/2021	2,960
17	3/12/2021	2,851
18	2/12/2021	2,692
19	1/12/2021	2,633
20	30/11/2021	2,595
21	29/11/2021	2,669
22	28/11/2021	2,703
23	27/11/2021	2,699
24	26/11/2021	2,308
25	25/11/2021	2,619
26	24/11/2021	2,596
27	23/11/2021	2,580
28	22/11/2021	2,641
29	21/11/2021	2,677
30	20/11/2021	2,734
31	19/11/2021	2,789
32	18/11/2021	2,867
33	17/11/2021	2,864
34	16/11/2021	2,866
35	15/11/2021	2,910

So assuming it might take 4-7 days before someone might need to attend hospital, I will compare the data from 5 days prior.

19 Dec - 227 Hospitalisations / 14 Dec - 5179 current cases = 4.38%
6 Dec - 152 Hospitalisations / 1 Dec - 2633 current cases = 5.77%

The slight difference might be Omicron being less damaging to the host with a change from Delta to Omicron now.

If you extrapolate this out, 19 Dec - 14,050 Current Cases * 4.38% = 615 hospitalisations on 24th December. I think we will reach our tipping point around 23rd December (515 hospitalisations).