New Zealand could be facing 50,000 daily Omicron infections by Waitangi weekend, according to modelling by a highly respected, overseas health research organisation, peaking at about 80,000 each day just a few weeks later.
The projections from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, updated last Thursday, predict an outbreak here lasting about three months, and a death toll totalling more than 400 by May.
This also comes with a warning ICU capacity could come under "extreme stress" through February and March.
RNZ political editor Jane Patterson has been looking at the figures.
