That's the difference between this variant here, and it's track record in India.
UK: risk of a short-term wave of infections with enough hospitalisations to put excessive stress on the NHS, but very little death and serious illness.
India: a surreal, almost impossible explosion of infections that collapsed their healthcare system.
We are incredibly lucky to live in a country where so many are already protected and our primary concern is too many people visiting A&E in the next few months while we finish the job.
...and that's what the modelling suggests could happen, hence the concern. This is nothing to do with zero-covid nor does it suggest the vaccines aren't very effective, it's just maths.
Millions of unvaccinated + millions more with only one dose + an
incredibly transmissible variant = a wave of new cases,
a small percentage of which end up in hospital if only briefly.
That's perfectly fine when it's 5000 cases a day, but the current trend
suggests a doubling every two weeks - that will hopefully slow, but until we vaccinate enough people to compensate later in the summer it's a genuine concern.