As the number of active case numbers in Tasmania begin to drop, and the number of daily cases starts to steady, Tasmanians might be wondering whether they're on the cusp of seeing the Omicron wave begin to wane.
Unfortunately it might not be that simple, and experts are warning any celebrations are likely premature.
Has Tasmania reached its peak?
In short, probably not.
Director of Public Health Mark Veitch said authorities needed more evidence to decide.
"We would need to see case numbers come down successively for a number of days before I could confidently say that we were on the way down for this peak, and so we're not quite at [that] point yet," Dr Veitch said.
As of Tuesday, the state had a total of 6,417 actives case of COVID-19.
While things are improving by some metrics, Dr Veitch said hospitalisations could continue to rise.
"We would expect further hospitalisations in the coming days, because it's been the experience of every jurisdiction that even when those case numbers plateau out with the passage of time, a number of those acute cases get sick enough to need hospitalisation.
"So that's what our system has been preparing for."
When will Tasmania hit the peak?
That could be a little while off.
Infectious disease modeller at Monash University Michael Lydeamore predicted we'd probably see the peak in the next two weeks, based on the current rate of growth.
But it depends on how people behave.
"The more that people are doing to keep themselves in isolation and prevent getting COVID, that's going to flatten the curve, that is going to cause the peak later, but it is good news for the overall number of infections," Dr Lydeamore said.
Head of Melbourne University's School of Population and Global Health Nancy Baxter agreed more data was needed, but said Tasmania was showing good signs of recovery.
"Overall, things are at least relatively stable in Tasmania, which is different than some of the other states," Professor Baxter said.
"It may well be that Tasmania has reached its peak and it's on its way down, but you only really know that in retrospect."
She said the bump in cases on January 17 might suggest the peak has now been reached, but it could also be a blip.
What other factors should we be looking at to decide?
At the moment, there are a number of factors authorities and experts are looking at to help them decide where we're sitting in the outbreak's trajectory.
Case numbers are useful, but even Dr Veitch admitted the daily case numbers weren't as reliable as they used to be.
He said there were probably half the true number of cases in the community being picked up through testing.
Professor Baxter agreed.
"In some places there's always a decrease over the weekend. So usually what we do is look at seven-day averages."
The community's vaccination can also be a good clue for researchers.
"Vaccines are tremendously important and one of the reasons Tasmania is getting through this as well as it is,is because of the very high vaccination rate," Professor Baxter said.
"The vaccines are still effective against the Omicron variant. It's not effective against transmission against the variant," she said.
"What really helps is a booster ... we know with the booster we can bump up the immunity to getting COVID, so you're less likely to get it if you've been boosted."
Currently 27 per cent of Tasmanians have had a booster, and Professor Baxter expects that as more people become boosted, the number will come down.
Dr Lydeamore said one important indication to look at was the proportion of people being tested compared to case numbers.
"In New South Wales, above 30 per cent of people testing are testing positive, and that's telling us that there's a lot more infection out there than we're aware of," Dr Lydeamore said.
"If you look at the same statistic in Tasmania, there's a lot of positive tests which is always indicating that there's a lot of people that have the disease and are soon to get the disease and will pass it on to a few other people."
So what happens after the peak?
Both experts agreed that after we see the peak, the virus won't just disappear. Even when numbers stabilise, they will be far above zero.
"There's a lot of focus [on case numbers] and everyone is really anxious and wants this to be over, but perhaps the focus is not necessarily all that helpful because even once we've reached the peak there's still going to be a lot of COVID around because the peak's very high," Dr Baxter said.
"We still need to be doing everything we can to try to decrease transmission even if we've reached the peak. We need to be doing that for weeks after."
The end of the Omicron wave won't necessarily mean we've gamed the pandemic, either.
Dr Baxter warned another variant, depending on its characteristics, could see another wave on infection.
"There's not much I'm sure about with respect to what's going to happen with COVID in the future, but what I would say is there will be another variant," she said.
But it's impossible to know when it's going to come.
"Almost always the new variant that spreads around the world, like Omicron and Delta did, is going to have to be able to outperform Omicron in some way ... by either getting around immunity to Omicron or waiting until immunity has waned to Omicron," Dr Baxter said.
