Australian Reports of the Virus Spread

[HappyFlyerFamily]

I wonder how many have resulted from the 452 unmentioned mystery cases?

That suggests 452 new chains then have begun which if it is just 2 others per household would add another 900+ cases. Or around 1,350 in total.

A subsequent case in the household is then linked to the mystery case as a household contact. If correct that suggests contact tracing is successfully identifying the source in less than 1 out of 3 new non-household/non-workplace cases.

I'm less concerned about the 452 - for the reason 99% have been so far linked.

If they wanted to address this, they could prioritise those who are positive on an asymptomatic test (and probably symptomatic but not a known close contact) because they are most likely to be 'confirmed' unlinked case.

So a) prioritise test results of known close contacts, but b) prioritise contact tracing on asymptomatic cases and symptomatic but with no known contact.

(Edit: so it says symptomatic but with no known contact)

 

[RAM]

Almost all those groups were in 1a and 1b and have had ample time to get booked in and get a jab.
Unfortunately far too many people being lazy and not taking personal responsibility.

Yesterday the Federal Minister for the NDIS (so covers all Disability facilities) admitted that nearly half of all disability care residents are still to receive the first visit to their 24 hour/day live-in facility, and their 1st doses. That is despite the Federla Govt commiting to start vaccinating them after it was revealed in May that they had secretly decided to wait. At that stage not one Disability Care resident nor worker had been vaccinated by the Federal Govt.

They are part of Priority 1A and were all supposed to be fully vaccinated with Pfizer by Week 6.

Under questioning it was revealed that the 3 victims in the Disability Care facility in Sydney were not given Pfizer but AstraZeneca. They are reported to have only received the first dose in the last month. At least they're part of the just over 50% of disability care residents who have got something more than four months after all were to be fully vaccinated with Pfizer.

So far over 5 million Pfizer doses have been injected - just not into most of those with highest priority for some reason.

The people in disability care predominantly are unable to leave their facility & require 24 hour supervision.

 

[RAM]

I'm less concerned about the 452 - for the reason 99% have been so far linked.

If they wanted to address this, they could prioritise those who are positive on an asymptomatic test (and probably symptomatic but not a known close contact) because they are most likely to be 'confirmed' unlinked case.

In this outbreak 99% have not been linked. The current total is 1,940 cases.

452 / 1,940 = 23% no link found to a source case (eg: never found where limo driver caught it)
900 / 1,940 = 46% linked to a mystery case as household contacts

219 / 1940 = 12% source identified outside of household
369 / 1940 = 19% household contacts

Linking household contacts is not arduous.

The hard task - identifying sources when not in household is seeing just 1 in 3 people identified (219/ 671)

That is not good.

 

[bcworld]

ATAGI statement on Sydney:

ATAGI Statement – Response to NSW COVID-19 outbreak – 24th July 2021

A statement from the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) in response to the NSW COVID-19 outbreak.

www.health.gov.au

All individuals aged 18 years and above in greater Sydney, including adults under 60 years of age, should strongly consider getting vaccinated with any available vaccine including COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca. This is on the basis of the increasing risk of COVID-19 and ongoing constraints of Comirnaty (Pfizer) supplies. In addition, people in areas where outbreaks are occurring can receive the second dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine 4 to 8 weeks after the first dose, rather than the usual 12 weeks, to bring forward optimal protection.

 

[RAM]

I just got back from my walk (wearing my mask). Man walks next to me maskless then proceeds to spit on ground in front of me.. disgusted on so many levels …

Post automatically merged: Jul 24, 2021

In Melb

But we can't possibly expect to infringe on his right to be self-centred & selfish!

The people I feel sorry for are those working in petrol stations here in Sydney.

Mask compliance at best 1 in 3. Scanning in = close to zero. Last week I again raised this at another petrol station & got the same reply, "We're told not to say or challenge anyone, there's a sign on the door and either side but most don't give a ....., it's up to the Police if they have the time."

Yet how many of these maskless wonders would go ballistic if the petrol stations were closed?

 

[MARTINE]

But we can't possibly expect to infringe on his right to be self-centred & selfish!

The people I feel sorry for are those working in petrol stations here in Sydney.

Mask compliance at best 1 in 3. Scanning in = close to zero. Last week I again raised this at another petrol station & got the same reply, "We're told not to say or challenge anyone, there's a sign on the door and either side but most don't give a ....., it's up to the Police if they have the time."

Yet how many of these maskless wonders would go ballistic if the petrol stations were closed?

Post automatically merged: Jul 24, 2021

Sorry the emojis were meant to cry …

 

[HappyFlyerFamily]

In this outbreak 99% have not been linked. The current total is 1,940 cases.

452 / 1,940 = 23% no link found to a source case (eg: never found where limo driver caught it)
900 / 1,940 = 46% linked to a mystery case as household contacts

219 / 1940 = 12% source identified outside of household
369 / 1940 = 19% household contacts

Linking household contacts is not arduous.

The hard task - identifying sources when not in household is seeing just 1 in 3 people identified (219/ 671)

That is not good.

I should be clearer - 99% of those not currently under investigation as to source have been linked

1940 current local cases
1479 linked
2 'confirmed' with no link
459 under investigation (edit: its incorrect to align the 452 to the never sourced limo driver, I'm willing to guess an overwhelming majority will be linked once investigations are completed)

2/ (1479 + 2) = 0.13% 'confirmed' unlinked cases.

Anyway the point of my reply post is that there are 550 NSW contact tracers + maybe 20 from other jurisdictions. If there are over 450 cases to be investigated as to source, they should start prioritising tracing the source on those which were caught under the asymptomatic surveillance testing and symptomatic but no known contact because they are more likely to be the problem cases with no source link.

 

[tgh]

We were out and about near the city on Friday.
My "one rat study" suggests that most folks were wearing their masks and using the check in app.
Busy as at First choice later in the burbs but even there most were stopping to check in..
Good to see as there is no "near and present " threat factor up here in Qld

 

[RAM]

I should be clearer - 99% of those not currently under investigation as to source have been linked

1940 current local cases
1479 linked
2 'confirmed' with no link
459 under investigation (edit: its incorrect to align the 452 to the never sourced limo driver, I'm willing to guess an overwhelming majority will be linked once investigations are completed)

2/ (1479 + 2) = 0.13% 'confirmed' unlinked cases.

Anyway the point of my reply post is that there are 550 NSW contact tracers + maybe 20 from other jurisdictions. If there are over 450 cases to be investigated as to source, they should start prioritising tracing the source on those which were caught under the asymptomatic surveillance testing and symptomatic but no known contact because they are more likely to be the problem cases with no source link.

Of the unknown cases with the December outbreaks - 13 out of the peak 19 cases were never linked or around 2 out of 3.

There was an extra 38 cases added to mystery cases (taken out of linked cases) a couple of weeks prior as well on November 20th with the figure jumping from 395 to 433 mystery cases given up on trying to link.

Now NSW Health has given up on linking 2 cases (added to unknown mystery cases put aside) which now stands at 453 no longer under investigation.

Mystery cases currently under investigation = 459.

Based on the NSW figures, contact tracing is only identifying 1 in 3 mystery cases (cases outside of existing household) it seems, since mid last year.

Luckily, until Delta, that was enough.
_________________________________
Contact tracing has to work in two directions unfortunately.

The one we've been discussing above (backwards looking), and forward looking = close contacts inside & outside household. This is where the exponential comes in. As they're so far behind now - it is almost impossible to control the contagion.

The good news is it seems that only around 1 in 20 to 30 is a super-spreader (high viral load shedding). But if that one person out of 20 to 30 has been working for 10 to 12 days or going shopping, exercising, buying petrol... then that is bad.

This all suggests that QR code compliance may also be very poor +/or the NSW system is very poorly designed.

As soon as someone is found to be cv+ then you'd hope you could pull out all locations they've visited - very easily. In fact, some foresight would have seen such a listing automatically produced for the contact tracers everytime a positive case is identified, complete with full contact information etc.

Then again, never let common sense get in the way of 'planning'.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

So reading between the lines there is not much more NSW authorities can do - they have effectively only allowed critical workers and seemingly have put restrictions 'close to the bone'.

Well we will have to agree to disagree on that. ie 10Km or whole of LGA which ever is too greater seems to generous.

I am sure there is more NSW can do. For example NZ way back at the start went for a very strict Lockdown (As but one example on a very limited range of foodstores were open as they really wanted to minimise mixing). Not saying NSW will, but that is just an example.

Dr Chant is a good operator and so it will be interesting to see what extra measures she works up over this weekend. She obviously has a lot more of the detail than we do, as there is not much granularity in the data that NSW Health release apart from location, and a lot of general comments.

Measures could included better communications to those family groups generating a higher rate of cases, or better paid sick leave for casual workers etc in targeted zones. Focussed use of the cheaper but less accurate screening test. I doubt it will be any one thing.

 

[HappyFlyerFamily]

Of the unknown cases with the December outbreaks - 13 out of the peak 19 cases were never linked or around 2 out of 3.

There was an extra 38 cases added to mystery cases (taken out of linked cases) a couple of weeks prior as well on November 20th with the figure jumping from 395 to 433 mystery cases given up on trying to link.

Now NSW Health has given up on linking 2 cases (added to unknown mystery cases put aside) which now stands at 453 no longer under investigation.

Mystery cases currently under investigation = 459.

Based on the NSW figures, contact tracing is only identifying 1 in 3 mystery cases (cases outside of existing household) it seems, since mid last year.

Luckily, until Delta, that was enough.
_________________________________
Contact tracing has to work in two directions unfortunately.

The one we've been discussing above (backwards looking), and forward looking = close contacts inside & outside household. This is where the exponential comes in. As they're so far behind now - it is almost impossible to control the contagion.

The good news is it seems that only around 1 in 20 to 30 is a super-spreader (high viral load shedding). But if that one person out of 20 to 30 has been working for 10 to 12 days or going shopping, exercising, buying petrol... then that is bad.

This all suggests that QR code compliance may also be very poor +/or the NSW system is very poorly designed.

As soon as someone is found to be cv+ then you'd hope you could pull out all locations they've visited - very easily. In fact, some foresight would have seen such a listing automatically produced for the contact tracers everytime a positive case is identified, complete with full contact information etc.

Then again, never let common sense get in the way of 'planning'.

Using covidlive information, your claim of 13 out of 19 is not linked is not fully verified.

Towards the end of the outbreak (Sydney is still in the middle of this outbreak) there were 19 cases under investigation on 17 January:
- 6 were linked on 18 January
- 10 were confirmed with no link
- 3 disappeared and were not confirmed on linked or no link statistics (2 on 25/1 and 1 on 26/1)

I think NSW formally give up investigations at the 28 day mark, because the case no longer has any tracing value, so there will be a great number reaching this point because contact tracers are now presumably overwhelm. Say there are 550-570 contact tracers trying to work upstream and downstream, they are unlikely to get through the current backlog and still my first reply post was to say the more problematic cases need to be prioritised.

NSW only upgraded their QR check in requirements on retail on 12 July - I'm guessing it doesn't affect logistics and some other critical services.

 

[Must...Fly!]

LaCrosse Building (apartments) in Docklands has now been upgraded to Tier 1 in Victoria. Watching this one closely myself as I live, work and frequent the supermarkets nearby...

Given proximity to the CBD, widespread infections here could be problematic.

 

[HappyFlyerFamily]

LaCrosse Building (apartments) in Docklands has now been upgraded to Tier 1 in Victoria. Watching this one closely myself as I live, work and frequent the supermarkets nearby...

Given proximity to the CBD, widespread infections here could be problematic.


View attachment 253914

Is this the first case with the infectious period arising after lockdown commenced?

Any information on their other movements? Hopefully not a critical workers so would be essetnially at home.

 

[Must...Fly!]

Is this the first case with the infectious period arising after lockdown commenced?

Any information on their other movements? Hopefully not a critical workers so would be essetnially at home.

Certainly not the first. No idea on any of the detail, I was just doing my periodical check of the exposure sites after finishing work and noticed it had been upgraded.

 

[antycbr]

LaCrosse Building (apartments) in Docklands has now been upgraded to Tier 1 in Victoria. Watching this one closely myself as I live, work and frequent the supermarkets nearby...

Given proximity to the CBD, widespread infections here could be problematic.


View attachment 253914

That’s the one which almost burnt down due to flammable cladding… jinxed.

 

[Must...Fly!]

That’s the one which almost burnt down due to flammable cladding… jinxed.

Indeed. The apartments are always advertised cheap, if they ever sell. This won't help!

 

[drron]

One of the problems is that the delta variant does seem to affect young people more frequently than the previous variants.figures from the UK.

This is what we know about the Delta variant and kids

The Delta variant is surging across the globe, and the World Health Organization warns it will rapidly become the world’s dominant strain of COVID-19.

www.ausdoc.com.au

That article gives some more information that now schools have become more frequent as sources of transmission.Of course also remember the younger generations are much less likely to have been vaccinated.

And if you want to see more detailed study of an outbreak of the Delta variant in China then read this.

Viral infection and transmission in a large well-traced outbreak caused by the Delta SARS-CoV-2 variant

Viral infection and transmission in a large well-traced outbreak caused by the Delta SARS-CoV-2 variant Baisheng Li1,2#, Aiping Deng1,2#, Kuibiao Li3#, Yao Hu1,2#, Zhencui Li1,2#, Qianling Xiong1,2,4, Zhe Liu1,2, Qianfang Guo1,2, Lirong Zou1,2, Huan Zhang1,2,Meng Zhang1,2, Fangzhu Ouyang1,2...

virological.org

And just a personal comment on the QF FA.I was very pleased to see she overnighted in Gladstone not Hervey Bay.We have a unit in Hervey bay and every month there are several nights of overnighting QF staff.Wouldn't have liked organising a deep clean of the unit.

 

[Pushka]

One of the problems is that the delta variant does seem to affect young people more frequently than the previous variants.figures from the UK.
View attachment 253915

This is what we know about the Delta variant and kids

The Delta variant is surging across the globe, and the World Health Organization warns it will rapidly become the world’s dominant strain of COVID-19.

www.ausdoc.com.au

That article gives some more information that now schools have become more frequent as sources of transmission.Of course also remember the younger generations are much less likely to have been vaccinated.

And if you want to see more detailed study of an outbreak of the Delta variant in China then read this.

Viral infection and transmission in a large well-traced outbreak caused by the Delta SARS-CoV-2 variant

Viral infection and transmission in a large well-traced outbreak caused by the Delta SARS-CoV-2 variant Baisheng Li1,2#, Aiping Deng1,2#, Kuibiao Li3#, Yao Hu1,2#, Zhencui Li1,2#, Qianling Xiong1,2,4, Zhe Liu1,2, Qianfang Guo1,2, Lirong Zou1,2, Huan Zhang1,2,Meng Zhang1,2, Fangzhu Ouyang1,2...

virological.org

And just a personal comment on the QF FA.I was very pleased to see she overnighted in Gladstone not Hervey Bay.We have a unit in Hervey bay and every month there are several nights of overnighting QF staff.Wouldn't have liked organising a deep clean of the unit.

DIL's 12 year old son in Kent County was pinged for contact with a positive case in his class. Infections common in schools. It's difficult to ascertain whether the age thing is a function of the virus or lower vaccination rates (simply because of timelines) as most 30-39 year olds are still in the wait list to receive second shots as the time period was extended from 3 to 8 weeks between doses.

 

[jakeseven7]

Yet these wankers throwing items at the police.
But when these wankers need police assistance for whatever reason, I bet they'll be showing another facade.
Disrespecting authority & the community in this way & at this time just shows what type of people these dead beats really are.
I know what I'd like to do to these scum, obviously can't say here.

Time n place people, time n place.
Now is neither.

Crazy scenes from the Sydney protests… Almost turning into a riot!

Surprised so many people there…

Wild scenes as Sydney anti-lockdown protesters clash with police​

Worrying video has been released of protests erupting in Sydney, as a sea of thousands of anti-lockdown demonstrators took to the streets.

A crowd stretching as far as the eye can see was spotted moving through the CBD towards Town Hall amid a massive police presence — some on the ground estimate there were as many as 15,000 people taking part in the march. Protestors were spotted scaling buildings as the demonstration grew, flooding the empty streets under lockdown.
Footage on social media shows the demonstrators walking down Broadway -- one of the main arteries through Sydney’s inner-west -- as part of a “worldwide rally for freedom” in the CBD.

Wild scenes as Sydney anti-lockdown protesters clash with police

The worrying video that has been released of protests erupting in Sydney and Melbourne on Saturday, as a sea of thousands of anti-lockdown demonstrators took to the streets in Australia’s two biggest cities, will be a scene the country will never forget.

www.news.com.au

 

[RooFlyer]

Sorry if this has been posted before, I got 17 pages behind. Better tidings from the Samoans, singing again after coming out of HQ in Tas heading to the mainland. No masks - oops!

Parting gift: Samoans reprise hotel balcony thank you after quarantine

Hobart Airport is treated to an encore performance of a Samoan song after a video of seasonal workers singing from the balconies of a quarantine hotel went viral earlier this week.

www.abc.net.au

This is lovely! Edit: Not sure why twitter thing not showing - I'll see if I can get it. Great singing from hotel balconies. Follow link in the above story. "A social media video of them singing on their hotel balconies earlier this week went viral — viewed more than 1.8 million times."

A still: