This time we know the Covid risks. We have simply decided to manage them | Zoe Williams

Why did the nation let its guard down this autumn, get back on the tube and into football grounds? Because we felt it was worth it

It is incredible to think of where we were this time last year: nearly a month into a national lockdown, with the prime minister's promise of Christmas bubbles planned for but never quite believed, and the atmospheric sense that every stranger represented a threat. We talked a lot about hugs, and stayed miles apart in the Tesco Metro. It was, in short, like living in a 1950s sci-fi dystopia, a subdued life of managed disturbance, just before something absolutely terrible happens. Now all our thoughts are on the Omicron strain, and the gear change, from complacency to deja vu, is pretty lurching.

The new daily case rates this time last year were averaging nearly 16,000; this week's daily average is around 43,000. It's an imperfect, even daft comparison, since the vaccine was yet to be cleared, let alone administered, and we hadn't mingled for nearly a month. Comparing hospitalisations shows a different picture: there are around 8,000 people in hospital today, it was more than double that a year ago.