Resource COVID19 V - The Info Thread

[Miguel Sanchez]

PerthNow: "New modelling from Telethon Kids Institute and Curtin University - which claims to be the "most sophisticated" in Australia - forecasts daily infections will peak near 11,000 next week, before hitting a plateau of above 5000 until mid-May"

Not sure that really correlates with what we're seeing but who knows. They might be expecting big numbers regionally.

Yeah I read that, I couldn’t work out why they thought the current downward trajectory would suddenly reverse. Maybe something to do with school holidays and Easter?

Either that or the modeling’s a couple of weeks old and they didn’t think we’d be past the peak by now.

 

[ZergMinion]

SA have broken their daily case record with just over 6000 cases (which adjusted for population would be just over 9k in WA) while their active cases adjusted for population matches our peak of 54k.

So essentially their outbreak is now worse than ours.

 

[Rowan18]

SA have broken their daily case record with just over 6000 cases (which adjusted for population would be just over 9k in WA) while their active cases adjusted for population matches our peak of 54k.

So essentially their outbreak is now worse than ours.

I don't think we should think of this as outbreaks anymore, just fluctuations of a virus that will always be there. WA cases will trend down for now but will probably spike up in a month or two once we release restrictions etc (which is happening in some of the other states).

It's starting to get very pointless to track positive cases - hospitalisations is the key metric. Once they remove firm isolation requirements (eg just stay home when sick) there will be no point to get tested as a routine activity (individuals may do so if going to high risk places etc).

 

[Ambrose Burnside]

I don't think we should think of this as outbreaks anymore, just fluctuations of a virus that will always be there. WA cases will trend down for now but will probably spike up in a month or two once we release restrictions etc (which is happening in some of the other states).

It's starting to get very pointless to track positive cases - hospitalisations is the key metric. Once they remove firm isolation requirements (eg just stay home when sick) there will be no point to get tested as a routine activity (individuals may do so if going to high risk places etc).

Yep agreed, it's all about hospitalisations now (and by extension ICU and deaths).

And thanks to strict vaccine mandates and border controls, it means we've avoided OG Wuhan and Delta and are tackling Omicron with over 95% double dosed 12+ and nearly 80% boosted 16+, which should keep those numbers down to levels the envy of the entire world.

 

[Forward Press]

Case numbers have a degree of usefulness if everyone who had symptoms or was a close contact got tested.

As it is, there is zero doubt real case numbers are far higher than those actually reported and since COVID is well on the path to being endemic, there is little point tracking daily case numbers, and hospitalisations are the real metric as the population builds up immunity via high rates of vaccination and infection. The real goal is to mitigate the impact on the health system over the next few months.

The border delay and January lockdown measures effectively prevented delta from coming here to any appreciable extent and allowed omicron to be 100% of all cases - the most ideal scenario as it is well known and proven that alpha and delta killed at far higher rates.

 

[Luuuc]

there is zero doubt real case numbers are far higher than those actually reported

I'm curious about what makes you certain of this.
I might have misunderstood, but I was under the impression that the recent random testing of the community pointed towards there not being widespread untested/unreported Covid in the community.

 

[ZergMinion]

I don't think we should think of this as outbreaks anymore, just fluctuations of a virus that will always be there. WA cases will trend down for now but will probably spike up in a month or two once we release restrictions etc (which is happening in some of the other states).

It's starting to get very pointless to track positive cases - hospitalisations is the key metric. Once they remove firm isolation requirements (eg just stay home when sick) there will be no point to get tested as a routine activity (individuals may do so if going to high risk places etc).

Adjusted for population, their covid situation is currently worse than ours looking at just hospitalizations.

Also their current peak is due at least in part to the Omicron B2 variant. If we'd opened up when they did we'd also have had two peaks. I would expect people who've long been on the open up side to gloss over that as it makes them look foolish (again).

If we time the release of restrictions correctly we shouldn't spike the numbers given we've done both Omicron waves at the same time.

 

[Rowan18]

Adjusted for population, their covid situation is currently worse than ours looking at just hospitalizations.

Also their current peak is due at least in part to the Omicron B2 variant. If we'd opened up when they did we'd also have had two peaks. I would expect people who've long been on the open up side to gloss over that as it makes them look foolish (again).

If we time the release of restrictions correctly we shouldn't spike the numbers given we've done both Omicron waves at the same time.

We're probably going to have another peak when the next variation comes along, then another for the next etc etc. That's what I was referring to - this isn't some outbreak that will end, it's a change that will remain with us for the foreseeable future. All this counting cases etc seems a bit redundant once we've settled into it in the next few months.

 

[Forward Press]

I'm curious about what makes you certain of this.
I might have misunderstood, but I was under the impression that the recent random testing of the community pointed towards there not being widespread untested/unreported Covid in the community.

Not aware of the random surveillance testing, but the case positivity rates (ratio of positive tests to actual tests) was very high and it always indicates a high degree of undertesting. If 1 in 10 tests are coming back positive, it is certain there are many more out there that haven't been tested.

 

[ZergMinion]

We're probably going to have another peak when the next variation comes along, then another for the next etc etc. That's what I was referring to - this isn't some outbreak that will end, it's a change that will remain with us for the foreseeable future. All this counting cases etc seems a bit redundant once we've settled into it in the next few months.

Your future Covid predictions haven't exactly had a stellar success rate over the last two years, so when you state something as a fact (such as "this isn't an outbreak that will end"), I have to consider that you might be wrong, or at least severely overstating what's actually likely to happen.

I think there's still enough uncertainty that there's no "Roadmap out of Covid" and it's possible we won't be going back to pre-Covid normal for quite some time. In the meantime I'm happy with evaluating where we are every couple of weeks and making decisions based on that.

 

[Miguel Sanchez]

Not aware of the random surveillance testing, but the case positivity rates (ratio of positive tests to actual tests) was very high and it always indicates a high degree of undertesting. If 1 in 10 tests are coming back positive, it is certain there are many more out there that haven't been tested.

Mentioned in that article about the Telethon Institute/Curtin modeling that they randomly tested 400 people and none of them had Covid, so there was a level of confidence from that that people aren’t walking around with Covid and not knowing it.

Depends how they selected the 400 though, I think.

 

[Ambrose Burnside]

I daresay the type who would refuse to volunteer for these random tests would also be the type to not get tested if they actually had symptoms too.

 

[ZergMinion]

Mentioned in that article about the Telethon Institute/Curtin modeling that they randomly tested 400 people and none of them had Covid, so there was a level of confidence from that that people aren’t walking around with Covid and not knowing it.

Depends how they selected the 400 though, I think.

I believe they inferred from the 400 that this meant at least 75% of cases were being picked up.

 

[Miguel Sanchez]

I believe they inferred from the 400 that this meant at least 75% of cases were being picked up.

Yeah that looks right: Fears of hidden COVID in WA ease on back of random testing

In a surprise finding, all 396 people tested across 266 different households returned a negative result — flipping a prior assumption that only between a quarter and a third of all cases were being reported on its head.

“We (now) think we’re actually picking up, through the official statistics, about three out of four infections – which is really high,” Professor Gething said.

 

[Forward Press]

Oh fair enough then, that's excellent news.

It would mean our peak would be delayed, though.

 

[Seadog]

6892 cases today, it seems we are on the down slope.

 

[Luuuc]

6892 cases today, it seems we are on the down slope.

We sure are.
I'd love to know the basis of that recent prediction of a peak of 11k next week because the pattern so far is following the original model pretty perfectly.
I guess they must be thinking that school holidays = spike in cases.

 

[Chris_6678]

WA recorded 4,993 new cases in WA to 8pm last night.
Active cases: 42,470
Cases in hospital: 240
Cases in ICU: 8
Deaths recorded yesterday: 0
Positive PCR tests yesterday: 1,632
Positive RATs yesterday: 3,361
Total PCR tests administered yesterday: 8,254

 

[Ambrose Burnside]

West is Best

 

[Ambrose Burnside]

6,349 cases, up from yesterday but the trend is still down
40,169 active cases, down from 42,470

236 in hospital (down from 240)
7 in ICU (down from 8)
3 deaths (up from 0, but dating back to 6th April)

Booster rate at 77.1%

 

[MrKK]

Hurrah! Although why you would persist for another 2 days with rules that no-one is going to bother complying with nor enforcing, only the experts would know.

South Australia drops mask-wearing mandate, records six COVID-linked deaths

As South Australia records another 4,401 COVID cases and six deaths, Premier Peter Malinauskas announces the state will push ahead with significant repeals of COVID restrictions, including the scrapping of mask mandates in all but high-risk settings.

www.abc.net.au

 

[Rowan18]

Hurrah! Although why you would persist for another 2 days with rules that no-one is going to bother complying with nor enforcing, only the experts would know.

South Australia drops mask-wearing mandate, records six COVID-linked deaths

As South Australia records another 4,401 COVID cases and six deaths, Premier Peter Malinauskas announces the state will push ahead with significant repeals of COVID restrictions, including the scrapping of mask mandates in all but high-risk settings.

www.abc.net.au

Awesome. Hopefully WA is next

 

[Ambrose Burnside]

SA's prolonged mask regime has been among the strictest in the country, and has been in place since mid-2021, around the time of the July lockdown.

Ooof

Keen for WA to adopt a similar change though. Wonder if it'll come when we hit 80% boosted?

 

[Hap Hapablap]

Ooof

Keen for WA to adopt a similar change though. Wonder if it'll come when we hit 80% boosted?

hope not, the way how we are going we are slowing right down with the boosters. im hoping its before the end of the month.

 

[Rowan18]

hope not, the way how we are going we are slowing right down with the boosters. im hoping its before the end of the month.

I reckon they'll wait for school holidays to be done, assess the damage (if any) and then make a call.