Australian Reports of the Virus Spread

[CaptainCurtis]

On the hospital discussion, anecdotally I can say that as a patient, it certainly appears that the system is (appreciably) under considerable strain. My observation has been that there is a huge desire to manage capacity/admissions - I've had to present to an ED 4 times in the last 3 weeks, with 3 of these resulting in short stays/management at home and 1 resulting in a longer admission. I strongly believe that pre-Covid I would have been admitted for a longer stay first time. Somewhat ironically, I would suspect multiple presentations consumes more resources than a single/longer presentation, although I guess beds may be an issue.

To be frank, the quality of care even during this longer admission was well below what I would expect (even by covid standards), and was bordering negligent. Puts one in a tricky position - you know how hard everyone is working, but that doesn't necessarily help you as the patient.

 

[tgh]

admission was well below what I would expect

Hopefully there will be a political "conversation" in the near future about bolstering our health system.
#1 son in sfo has had a few brushes with the US system and opines that it is faultless S A V E for the usurious cost structure.

 

[Quickstatus]

I've had to present to an ED 4 times in the last 3 weeks, with 3 of these resulting in short stays/management at home and 1 resulting in a longer admission. I strongly believe that pre-Covid I would have been admitted for a longer stay first time. Somewhat ironically, I would suspect multiple presentations consumes more resources than a single/longer presentation, although I guess beds may be an issue.

Perhaps or perhaps not. Depends on several factors, and actually hard to generalise to a set of “rule of thumbs”
One overall generality is early discharge and less days in hospital though at the level of the singular patient, this may occasionally be not ideal.
The health systems (public and private) has always had to juggle capacity, budget, expectations - and this has existed long before Covid.

………

political "conversation" in the near future about bolstering our health system.

Usually at election times… - there are voter bribes such as waiting list reduction funding, additional expenditure that are just really announcements of existing incremental budget increases

…….
Don’t know why there was nearly 250k tests reported on 17 sept for the previous 24hrs. There were 2 other days in the past with one over 300k tests.
My chats with one of the infectious diseases specialists have not revealed a reason. I was actually one of those tests (covidneg) and when I visited the testing facility there was only 1 car ahead of me. (Yes I know - sample of one)

 

[HappyFlyerFamily]

Perhaps or perhaps not. Depends on several factors, and actually hard to generalise to a set of “rule of thumbs”
One overall generality is early discharge and less days in hospital though at the level of the singular patient, this may occasionally be not ideal.
The health systems (public and private) has always had to juggle capacity, budget, expectations - and this has existed long before Covid.

………


Usually at election times… - there are voter bribes such as waiting list reduction funding, additional expenditure that are just really announcements of existing incremental budget increases

…….
Don’t know why there was nearly 250k tests reported on 17 sept for the previous 24hrs. There were 2 other days in the past with one over 300k tests.
My chats with one of the infectious diseases specialists have not revealed a reason. I was actually one of those tests (covidneg) and when I visited the testing facility there was only 1 car ahead of me. (Yes I know - sample of one)

For NSW - there were 155k tests reported on 17/9 by NSW Health, not the 247k reported on covidlive. But agree NSW Health's total test figure is out by about 91k if you used the previous day's total test figure and added that day's reported tests.

On 23/8, NSW Health reported 311k tests and about 140k tests were acknowledged as backlog negatives. And the relevant daily report confirmed this in writing News - COVID-19 (Coronavirus) statistics

On 22/8, NSW Health reported 206k tests and during the press conference it was verbally acknowledged as containing 60k worth of backlog tests. This wasn't explicitly confirmed in the daily report.

 

[jase05]

Victoria figures seemingly headed the right way and have hopefully peaked.

 

[jakeseven7]

Victoria figures seemingly headed the right way and have hopefully peaked.

Peaked? Cases are going to go through the roof when restrictions start easing. It’s just what is going to happen…. Everywhere.

 

[moa999]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1439032582348308481

Another 7-day average down for NSW.

Vic number was also promising and it's R value is now down to about 1.36, the lowest it's been in some time.

 

[jase05]

Peaked? Cases are going to go through the roof when restrictions start easing. It’s just what is going to happen…. Everywhere.

But at least more will be vaxxed by then.
The fear was that Victoria would get to NSW levels now before vaccines kicked in. With the Moderna blitz due to fire up from next Friday they should be in a very decent situation within a couple of weeks hopefully

 

[burmans]

For NSW while it's too soon to say definitively, the hospitalization rate is slowing too which is good. I suspect the peak will be before (and lower than) that predicted by NSW health but that would be a good thing, 3000 in hospital would certainly be straining the system.

 

[burmans]

Peaked? Cases are going to go through the roof when restrictions start easing. It’s just what is going to happen…. Everywhere.

Victoria figures seemingly headed the right way and have hopefully peaked.

Yeah but you guys are talking apples and oranges, one about what is going to get us to the point where vaccination allows restrictions to ease and one about what happens after. There are plenty of jurisdictions in Aus who want to see cases (and more importantly hospitalisations) drop as a pre-cursor to removing restrictions. It's not an on/off switch either, if cases/hospitalisations remain high we may get some restrictions removed but not as many as we'd like.

Plenty here wont like it but I don't see us getting an UK style opening up if hospitalisations are high.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Plenty here wont like it but I don't see us getting an UK style opening up if hospitalisations are high.

That was the point I made when the first Doherty modelling was released (very clear if one read the appendices). The 17 Sept update which now more clearly shows the effect of starting with a high number of infections, just makes that even clearer. How one opens was always to be linked with public health measures. The more hospitalisations you open with, the greater those measures will need to be.

 

[jakeseven7]

Yeah but you guys are talking apples and oranges, one about what is going to get us to the point where vaccination allows restrictions to ease and one about what happens after. There are plenty of jurisdictions in Aus who want to see cases (and more importantly hospitalisations) drop as a pre-cursor to removing restrictions. It's not an on/off switch either, if cases/hospitalisations remain high we may get some restrictions removed but not as many as we'd like.

Plenty here wont like it but I don't see us getting an UK style opening up if hospitalisations are high.

People need to start to get used to not using case numbers and start looking more at hospitalisation numbers is my point, case numbers are inevitably going to go back up (assuming people bother to get tested once they are vaccinated of course).

 

[Quickstatus]

backlog

Correct though the reason for the backlog is unclear.
?Transportation of samples
?testing capacity at maximum?

 

[burmans]

People need to start to get used to not using case numbers and start looking more at hospitalisation numbers is my point, case numbers are inevitably going to go back up (assuming people bother to get tested once they are vaccinated of course).

Yes, I get your point but maybe you should make it like that. In the current context people are scared on the idea that cases will go up because they also link it to hospitalisations going up, I would certainly agree that this will change as vaccinations go up but for most that's an argument that needs to be made and repeated rather than just assumed.

I'd suggest the majority have yet to get to that conclusion though they will with time.

 

[jakeseven7]

Yes, I get your point but maybe you should make it like that. In the current context people are scared on the idea that cases will go up because they also link it to hospitalisations going up, I would certainly agree that this will change as vaccinations go up but for most that's an argument that needs to be made and repeated rather than just assumed.

I'd suggest the majority have yet to get to that conclusion though they will with time

It would be probably be more helpful if our state premiers led the way on this rather than me…because apart from 2 of them they are still screeching like banshees every time there is a positive poo test let alone a case

 

[OATEK]

Correct though the reason for the backlog is unclear.
?Transportation of samples
?testing capacity at maximum?

I thought it was clear when this was first discussed at the briefing several weeks ago. When testing results come through, they prioritise the Positive notifications and not the Negatives. Eventually they are all loaded from the various sources (eg public and private labs) as not all flow through to the notification system electronically - some have to be loaded..

 

[HappyFlyerFamily]

It would be probably be more helpful if our state premiers led the way on this rather than me…because apart from 2 of them they are still screeching like banshees every time there is a positive poo test let alone a case

Cough... Glen Innes, regional NSW

 

[Quickstatus]

they prioritise the Positive notifications and not the Negatives

Yes, I understand all that. However the new positives were at stable numbers over the previous few days, so not anymore that they have to prioritise. Im just trying to get a sense of the actual testing capacity.

 

[burmans]

It would be probably be more helpful if our state premiers led the way on this rather than me…because apart from 2 of them they are still screeching like banshees every time there is a positive poo test let alone a case

Agree on the premiers though would note many people get their information second, third or fourth hand so I think all of us have a role in disseminating information which I would encourage (and misinformation too for that matter though I'm not of course encouraging that).

 

[HappyFlyerFamily]

Protests in Melbourne - add a randomly chosen 20% to next weeks figures.