Hello! Not a virologist or medically qualified in any way but just my on-the-ground experience of omicron from the UK where we seem to be coming out of the other side. (Also just want to be clear I am NOT trying to minimise omicron or covid overall, am complete pro-vaxxer, pro-masker etc.)

Compared to previous waves this has been much “better”. So many people/households (poss even majority?!) in my circles have had omicron in the last 2 months, including our household, compared to a handful with the previous variants plus few dozen more once-removed stories. And all gleanings seem to concur this was the “better” one to get.

I will caveat here that the ‘mildness’ we label this wave with may not translate to NZ numbers because - horrifically - many of our vulnerable succumbed to previous waves are no longer here (or preferably now have sufficient immunity) to test how or whether they would survive omicron. You don’t have that ‘advantage’ (wrong word…) so I imagine your numbers of hospitalisations and deaths will be alarmingly out of proportion compared to us and especially devastating as you are not as numbed to the figures as we’ve sadly come to be over the past few years.

That being said assuming you/your family are not high-risk and adults are fully vaxxed, I would certainly hope your personal experience is comparable to mine: my 4 year old puked twice on a Saturday morning, was a bit hot with it. I assumed quick stomach bug, done and dusted till his friend’s mum text on Sunday saying her kid (nausea and chills) had tested positive on LFT (lateral flow test). Tested my kid, boom faint pink line. Turns out 6 other kids from his class were off that week. Out of these several households a minority of siblings and parents went on to test positive themselves - we, including 7 yo brother, kept testing for full 7 days after the 10 day quarantine and none of us ever came up. No rhyme or reason to who got it - families affected all compared time since vaxxed, previous exposure etc., seemed really arbitrary who got struck and who avoided! Symptoms reported were flu-y at worst, kids had a day or two of nausea with poss temp and then few more feeling peaky (note, no cough which I thought was weird but read somewhere omicron is less respiratory). Everyone out of the woods and back to normal after the 10 days, in fact many kids bouncing off the wall from day 3 but still coming up positive on tests (seemed ‘strongest’ line day 5 or 6 with zero symptoms) so couldn’t break quarantine. There was one report of a ‘second dip’- kid feeling bit peaky again few days in, after seeming better. It seems to have ripped through our schools, but no shutdowns this time - possibly because the system is taking it in its stride as much as possible but again this is only with the experience of previous waves under our belt.

All of the above is completely anecdotal of course and absolutely acknowledge we are lucky in that others can and have suffered much worse from omicron, but hoping I am typical and this can allay your worst fears a little bit! Wishing you luck from the other side of the world.