It won't take many weeks increasing at the current rate for it to become non-negligible. Which it might not do, or then again it might.
We would need 255k daily cases to reach the hospitalisation levels that overwhelmed the NHS in January. That would be a staggeringly high level and feels really unlikely to me.
Of course the counterarguments are a) it’s Delta which we’re trailblazing on, and b) the risk perception has changed meaning more risks will be taking.
But conversely we trailblazed with Alpha which was far more infectious and that didn’t peak out much higher than March in terms of deaths, and people are still being cautious (see observations thread with people bemoaning high levels of mask compliance; masks may not be very effective but they are probably a “symbol” of caution).
The risk perception here really comes down to how much effect you think restrictions had in attenuating the peak. Comparing against places like Florida and Sweden, I don’t think they had a huge effect, but we can never know for sure. But we are all on the same side now in (bizarrely) hoping that lockdowns aren’t
incredibly effective - in that we are hoping that the natural peak isn’t more than four times above what it would have been in Winter with a lockdown.
Nightclubs are the highest risk but not everyone goes to them - a subset of an age group - and those that do will likely be taking risks in other ways already, and this pool will rapidly be exhausted. I can therefore see reason to be far more optimistic (my main concern is local challenges in areas of low vaccination uptake).