A suggestion why the variant may be spreading more readily.
The initial data, published online and not yet peer-reviewed, came from experiments using lung tissue samples taken from patients during surgery. By 24 hours, the Omicron variant had replicated about 70 times more than Delta and the original variant.
It takes 3 weeks to receive both Pfizer jabs and a further 1-2 weeks to develop the maximum
level of protection. Important to consider for those still in the queue or not yet there. The UK reported 165 Covid related deaths for 15 Dec, despite a vaccination level just 5% less than Australia.
One data point. Between 2 January and 24 September 2021, the age-adjusted risk of deaths involving coronavirus (COVID-19) was 32 times greater in unvaccinated people than in fully vaccinated individuals.
Australia has so few deaths, and is lagging OS. The best data on what can go wrong, if it does is to look at the UK or other which has a similar demographic and universal health care system.
Some of us can. Most can’t. There are impacts on the greater community that go beyond health and our sanity. The pull back in consumers spending, holiday travel and people going out are currently topical with business leaders and politicians.
Some of the short term consumer impacts and costs of living with Covid?
The impacts on the food supply chain were not part of any forecast.
If there is any good news it is the high level of adult vaccinations (boosters excepted) and lower rates so far of serious illness. Covid-19 is far more serious than influenza and remains a pandemic.
Note that Australia’s upsurge in infection rates is very recent. Hospitalisation rates are lagging infection rates and fatality rates lagging hospitalisation/ICU admissions. With the peak of the surge still to come, can we expect supply chain issues and workforce pressures to continue?
If information coming out of the US proves to be correct, Australians may need to revisit what types of mask they are wearing as cloth masks appear to have limited (possibly ‘negligible effectiveness’) against the Omicron variant. Cloth masks may be providing a false sense of security leading to increase rates of transmission within the community.
Information is starting to flow as experiments, simulations and clinical records are populating the databases. While this is not yet peer reviewed it might be encouraging as a reinforcement there is ‘a way’ that is better than ‘let it rip’.
At our local Woolworths shelves were stripped bare of toilet paper. And this is WA we’re talking about! It’s pretty obvious people were panic buying due to Omicron threat…
Edit: Perhaps supply issues?
So while right now our national strategy is necessarily about suppressing the virus and vaccinating as many people as possible, a one-eyed focus on just case numbers overlooks the fact that less people are getting seriously ill, let alone dying.
Shifting our focus from just case numbers, to actually looking at how many people are becoming seriously ill and requiring hospitalisation will be increasingly what matters. After all, this is how we manage all other infectious diseases.
The last two weeks of the Omicron outbreak have been the deadliest of the entire coronavirus pandemic, with four of the five highest daily death tolls all in the past week alone, figures reveal. 78 deaths on Tuesday.
Being vaccinated makes a big difference. NSW for example, of 708 unvaccinated Covid cases in the 70-to-79 age group, there were 171 people who either died or ended up in ICU, giving a severe outcome rate of 21.9%, compared with a rate of 1.8% for vaccinated people.
Older Australians remain at greatest risk. Those aged 70 and over accounted for almost 80% of the deaths in the initial waves up to August last year, and once again make up a similar share of deaths in the current wave.
Any death at any time is terrible and distressing for family and friends involved. It is very important deaths are not politicised.
As many reports indicate, many of those who died and were diagnosed with Covid had underlying health conditions which may have impacted on their ability to fight a new viral infection.
There is a tendency to oversimplify reasons in many parts of life - and death. If you look at death certificates of elderly people it is very common to show more than one cause, even quite a list of causes. Which one done did it? All of them. The one that goes into the statistical collection is to some degree arbitrary.
Before COVID every winter a number of older Aussies would die nominally of the flu. You can bet that few of them had no other health problems. We can expect something similar with COVID.
Yes they do, but how many compared to those who are dying of COVID impacts? I believe the number is much higher for COVID than Flu, so COVID is having a greater impact on mortality figures.
Recurrent seasonal flu and pandemic COVID mortality is not directly comparable. We will have to wait and see how it turns out as an an annual figure once the pandemic is over and when (if?) COVID settles into a seasonal pattern.
The report includes a full listing of facilities by state and NAPSID identity, with the number of active resident and staff cases and deaths.
The number of facilities with active Covid out breaks 1198 includes 7861 residents and 11,198 staff.
Note there are approx 2700 registered aged care facilities in Australia with approx 200,000 paying residents.
And it is no different to most other countries post December 2021. The data you have selected could be seen as trying to make a political point, misrepresenting Australia’s deaths compared to many other developed nations, such as the EU, UK and US. A representation of how Australia fits with developed nations/areas is represented by:
Australia is tracking less than the EU, UK, US and Canada. New Zealand has lower rates as they are at the very early stages of the Omicron outbreak, and their rates will be worth watching into the future. Singapore’s strict Covid controls have also protected it mostly from Omicron.
It is also worth noting that the Johns Hopkin University data has limitations, as many deaths may have occurred in some countries with poor testing infrastructure (numbers of deaths are likely to be underreported in such cases)…while in others (like Australia) any person who dies and has a positive test is reported as a death with Covid (irrespective if Covid or another condition caused the death). The Commonwealth government has recently announced belatedly that they will now be scrutinising deaths with Covid to better understand if the death is because of Covid or other condition.
It is unfortunate there is traction online to politicise Covid deaths for political purposes.
The most relevant comparisons for Australia are with nations where there are similar levels of health care and vaccination outcomes. That would exclude the USA and it would exclude the much varied approach across the EU as relevant. Alternately those living in the UK, Canada, NZ, Japan and Singapore all have good access to high levels of health care vaccination.
Australia in comparison lagged on vaccination. The later delivery of vaccination has been balanced by a strategy to lock out and quarantine (under Australian Govt leadership). Nationally the success of a broad range of strategies have collectively restrained localised outbreaks. There is no singling out of any one line of leadership or flavour in the data. It’s historical content. Looking more recently to the UK and Canada both ahead of Australia for the past 2 months, is a guide to where we are now tracking.
If there is a point to be made it’s for all our leadership to choose how they respond as individuals. Pointedly to the significant death rate now being recorded. Whether outcomes over prior weeks could have been worse or better we can’t change the past. No amount of massaging statistics will change the impacts of the lives lost.
The clear choice for all leadership is to acknowledge that there is now much greater loss and suffering. The deaths are real.
When vaccinations were first being offered there was a flood of politicians taking the opportunity to roll up the sleeves and take one for our future. There’s now an open question irrespective of which politician or party alignment. How many of their constituents have died due to Covid-19 spreading in the community? Do they know who each and every one was, and have they acknowledged each and every one and their families?
If there is a message in this, it’s simply asking whether any of our politicians really care about the lives being lost, and those impacted? It seems we have forgotten the lessons of the past where lives were lost and each passing given due recognition. Irrespective of personal circumstance on the day.
