With 1,505 confirmed Omicron cases and up to 900 more expected, the new Covid variant is taking hold in our region.
But other areas like London and the South East are currently much harder hit - with more than 10,000 confirmed cases in the capital alone.
Worryingly though, the numbers - as per the latest UK Health Security Agency data - are rising exponentially. And if our region follows the pattern seen elsewhere, cases of Omicron could number 10,000 by the Christmas weekend.
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Across England, there had been 34,474 cases of Omicron by Saturday evening. The first case was found on November 27 - just 23 days ago.
In our region on Tuesday last week there were just 261 confirmed Omicron cases - that means that after just four days, Omicron cases were almost six times higher.
In London, there were 1,935 confirmed cases this time last week, suggesting our region is around a week behind the curve - and painting a scary picture for Christmastime here.
The Mayor of London declared a "major incident" in the capital over the weekend.
For now though, the North East has fewer Omicron cases than most areas of the UK. It also had, on December 18, the fewest new cases.
But the most worrying statistic at the moment is that the rate of doubling for Omicron cases remains rapid here.
Only Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Yorkshire and Humber had seen less confirmed Omicron cases.
Yorkshire and Humber had many more potential cases - suggesting that rates may be about to rocket there too.
In each area of England - except for the South West - the Omicron numbers have been doubling less than every two days. In the North East, the latest figure for the rate of doubling, from December 16, showed that it took just 1.3 days.
This is the quickest in the country, though may be explained by the comparatively low number of cases so far.
In full, this is how the Omicron picture in the North East compared to the other areas of the UK at 6pm on Saturday:
East Midlands - 5,047 confirmed cases, 5,082 potential cases, 64.4% of positive Covid tests were thought to be Omicron
East of England - 2,255 confirmed cases, 10,960 potential cases, 72.3% of positive tests were thought to be Omicron
London - 10,092 confirmed cases, 28,509 potential cases, 86.4% of positive tests were thought to be Omicron
North East - 1,505 confirmed cases, 920 potential cases, 36.9% of positive tests were thought to be Omicron
North West - 3,157 confirmed cases, 11,773 potential cases, 64.9% of positive tests were thought to be Omicron
South East - 6,934 confirmed cases, 9,983 potential cases, 66.3% of positive tests were thought to be Omicron
South West - 2,574 confirmed cases, 2,312 potential cases, 55.3% of positive tests were thought to be Omicron
West Midlands - 1,905 confirmed cases, 6,169 potential cases, 61.2% of positive tests were thought to be Omicron
Yorkshire and Humber - 925 confirmed cases, 6,368 potential cases, 54.6% of positive tests were thought to be Omicron
Scotland - 1,075 confirmed cases, 16,715 potential cases
Wales - 272 confirmed cases, 523 potential cases
Northern Ireland - 1,281 confirmed cases
Figures for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland do not explain the number of cases where "S-gene target failure" has been found as a proportion of total Covid cases. This is the indicator of Omicron used to highlight potential cases of the new variant - but it is only an indicator and cases have to be confirmed through further testing.
