@wcz What do you mean? The only part of the Focals that takes long is the time between entering the Focal results into the tool and the release of the pay letters by HR. But from management perspective, the Focal is done when the tool closes, because there is practically never a difference between what the manager decides and what HR releases (you could ask why it takes so long then, but that is another question).
If the manager decides to give someone a bad rating in their Focal, then that has already happened. HR does not dispute this. Ever. So any rating-related firings can happen basically immediately.
And OP, people get fired every year at Focal time. That is not a new thing. If it hasn‘t hit your department in a more obvious way yet, then you were basically just lucky. Intel forces managers to set up 2-5% (depending on HR guidance) of their employees for getting fired every year.