Regarding Omicron and hospitalizations, I don't think that "decoupled" is the right word to use as that would suggest that there is no direct relationship between infections and hospitalizations. I think the correct description is that the hospitalization rate is significantly lower for the Omicron variant waves. I don't know if this is due to the variant itself or a combination of the variant with vaccinations and protection from prior infections.
Looking at the CDC data for FL, the current seven day moving average is 54,394 cases and 1,223 daily new COVID-19 hospital admissions.
The last time there was a similar seven day moving average of daily new COVID-19 hospital admissions, it was 1,219 on 9/14 when the seven day moving average of cases was 11,838 in the Delta wave.
The hospitalization rate of documented cases in the current wave (Omicron dominant) is about 2.3%. In the last wave (Delta dominant) it was about 10.3%.
Doing the math, the hospitalization rate of the Omicron driven wave is 77.8% lower than it was for the Delta driven wave. This data jibes with statements from experts around the world.
Put another way, to get the same number of hospitalizations would take about 4.5 times the number of cases.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that there are far more undocumented infections with Omicron due to testing capacity constraints as well as people (like my business partner) with such mild symptoms that even if they strongly suspect COVID don't bother getting tested and just isolate for the recommended time period. If that anecdotal evidence mirrors reality it would mean that the number of infections required to overwhelm hospitals is much higher (perhaps 10 times or more ) in an Omicron driven wave than it was with a Delta driven wave.
The CDC does an estimate for influenza. For the 2018-2019 flu season they estimated 380,000 hospitalizations and 29 million symptomatic cases which calculates out to 1.3%. It's hard to compare to Omicron based on infections but it seems reasonable to say that the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 causes a hospitalization rate that is about 2 or 3 times higher than the 2018-2019 mix of influenza. 2018-2019 was a pretty mild flu season but I didn't choose a year with a more virulent mix so I would have fewer posters accusing me of minimizing COVID.