tdgeek:

 

But hospitalisation is 173 as at today, which will be just the outbreak states. 

 

This is a very big elephant in the room. 

To quote Wikipedia about our outbreak last year:

 

On 5 April, 89 new cases (48 confirmed and 41 probable) were reported, bringing the total to 1,039 (872 confirmed and 167 probable), and 29 more recoveries were reported, bringing the total to 156.[73] The number of people in hospital rose to 15, with three in intensive care, of whom two were in critical condition. (Note that almost all probable cases were later confirmed).

 

That's at the stage in the NZ outbreak roughly where Sydney is now after a a couple of weeks of sustained increases in average daily new cases.  Total number of cases is lower than Sydney by almost half, but the number of hospitalisations / ICU / "critical" is massively lower.

It seems to be unequivocal evidence that Delta is much more dangerous.  The numbers are just too compelling to argue that there's some other explanation - the very high testing rates and first-world healthcare system in Australia with comparison to past outbreaks there and here provide a very good case study.  If anything they understate the increased risk, as a significant (but still far too low) proportion of the most vulnerable demographic has been vaccinated.  It's useless comparing hospitalisation and fatality rate with ie the UK where almost all of the most vulnerable have been vaccinated.  Delta is causing havoc in parts of the US where vaccination rates are lower.

There's an article in the NYT today stating that "some" experts are questioning whether there's sufficient evidence to show that Delta is much worse than earlier strains and/or reluctance to accept anecdotal evidence until it's been studied and results published.  Made me roll my eyes when reading it.

Too little - too slow seems to have been the default global response.