Australian Reports of the Virus Spread

[jakeseven7]

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

Oh well we can afford to lose a bunch of the Sydney and Melbourne protesters

 

[Princess Fiona]

I looked back through my messenger tonight. About 6 weeks ago a friend in Sydney was feeling particularly down about the lockdown. I replied that it was ok, that NSW would actually be leading us through this and we would be the first to drop the daily doom press conferences and be amongst the first to trial home quarantine and open up travel for us.
I feel very strongly that this is the outbreak we had to have.
The medical side of me is angry that Delta was let loose in a very vulnerable, largely unvaccinated population and I am sad that it has led to prolonged lockdown and all of the consequences on a long term psychological and economic perspective.

However I think that if we had continued to stutter along with occasional well contained brief HQ breaches we would all be sitting here believing it wasn’t a race with woeful vaccination levels and staying closed off from each other and the world for far longer.

A rock and a hard place indeed…..

 

[lovetravellingoz]

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

Though at least this time there were vastly less people involved in Melbourne than the "protest" on 21 August.

 

[oz_mark]

The medical side of me is angry that Delta was let loose in a very vulnerable, largely unvaccinated population and I am sad that it has led to prolonged lockdown and all of the consequences on a long term psychological and economic perspective.

However I think that if we had continued to stutter along with occasional well contained brief HQ breaches we would all be sitting here believing it wasn’t a race with woeful vaccination levels and staying closed off from each other and the world for far longer.

A rock and a hard place indeed…..

That there was going to be an outbreak was almost inevitable. Even if it had come 6 months later, I am not sure that the vaccination rates would have been that good.

 

[Princess Fiona]

That there was going to be an outbreak was almost inevitable. Even if it had come 6 months later, I am not sure that the vaccination rates would have been that good.

Agreed. The outbreak was the driver that we needed. The fact that this is so shows that the various National and State vaccination programs needed much more at the outset to get our people moving.

 

[Batterytraveller]

Well worth reading this

‘“In the roadmap to freedom, I hear nothing about people like me, other than as a qualifying postscript to the Covid deaths: ‘But they had an underlying health condition’,” says Racquel Sherry.’

‘Freedom day doesn’t include me’: for some, the end of lockdown will be a time of fear

Those most at risk from Covid say the easing of restrictions when vaccination targets are met will bring anxiety and danger

www.theguardian.com

 

[MARTINE]

Well worth reading this

‘“In the roadmap to freedom, I hear nothing about people like me, other than as a qualifying postscript to the Covid deaths: ‘But they had an underlying health condition’,” says Racquel Sherry.’

‘Freedom day doesn’t include me’: for some, the end of lockdown will be a time of fear

Those most at risk from Covid say the easing of restrictions when vaccination targets are met will bring anxiety and danger

www.theguardian.com

Yes
What an impressive woman.

 

[jakeseven7]

Well worth reading this

‘“In the roadmap to freedom, I hear nothing about people like me, other than as a qualifying postscript to the Covid deaths: ‘But they had an underlying health condition’,” says Racquel Sherry.’

‘Freedom day doesn’t include me’: for some, the end of lockdown will be a time of fear

Those most at risk from Covid say the easing of restrictions when vaccination targets are met will bring anxiety and danger

www.theguardian.com

Good article but really there is no other choice for them anyway, Any number of common diseases could really knock them about, covid is just another one unfortunately.

 

[drron]

Though there are some encouraging studies with vaccination after transplant.This is an article using 3 doses of an mRNA vaccine with the third dose given at 2 months after the second.Ended up with 68% developing antibodies with a large rise after the third dose.I know 2 renal physicians using this regime.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2108861

 

[Pom-DownUnder]

Well worth reading this

‘“In the roadmap to freedom, I hear nothing about people like me, other than as a qualifying postscript to the Covid deaths: ‘But they had an underlying health condition’,” says Racquel Sherry.’

‘Freedom day doesn’t include me’: for some, the end of lockdown will be a time of fear

Those most at risk from Covid say the easing of restrictions when vaccination targets are met will bring anxiety and danger

www.theguardian.com

A return to normal for everyone is not as rosy as it could be, but i think thats more a factor of some people having a different baseline, scratch the surface of any family and you will find troubles enough to give you pause. General rules have to be just that, general, public.

Hopefully more specific support can be put in place. (ie. for people like my wife who cannot work but who is officially undiagnosed and an 'interesting case' ... which translates to no the NDIS will not help you because you dont fit into any of our tick boxes).

 

[jakeseven7]

A return to normal for everyone is not as rosy as it could be, but i think thats more a factor of some people having a different baseline, scratch the surface of any family and you will find troubles enough to give you pause. General rules have to be just that, general, public.

Hopefully more specific support can be put in place. (ie. for people like my wife who cannot work but who is officially undiagnosed and an 'interesting case' ... which translates to no the NDIS will not help you because you dont fit into any of our tick boxes).

Yes and also remembering the baseline and life was present precovid as well.

 

[burmans]

Appears to be an error in the Total cases!!

 

[Lat34]

View attachment 258882
[Apperas to be an error in the Total cases!!

Agree. 1,333 = yesterday's total cases 1331 + today's new overseas acquired. Hopefully it will be fixed soon

 

[jase05]

Gladys is pleased today

 

[burmans]

Gladys is pleased today

As you would expect, case numbers starting to come down, hospitalisation rate slowing.

 

[Spongbob]

This might be a silly question, but how do you calculate the "R" (effective reproduction) rate for the COVID virus?

 

[Lat34]

This might be a silly question, but how do you calculate the "R" (effective reproduction) rate for the COVID virus?

Lost of info including Reff can be found here at Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Australia | Data (scroll down the page for NSW, VIC, ACT figures)

 

[Spongbob]

Lost of info including Reff can be found here at Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Australia | Data (scroll down the page for NSW, VIC, ACT figures)

Thanks for this.
While the website shows a R rate, I cannot see an explanation of how it calculated.
It mentions "Calculated with a 4-day ratio"; but what is this ratio?
Covid test numbers vs new cases detected?

Dr Nick Coatsworth suggests the R number in a densely populated suburb with high rises will have a different R number to a lower density suburb in the same city (see: What is the R number and why is it important?)

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Thanks for this.
While the website shows a R rate, I cannot see an explanation of how it calculated.
It mentions "Calculated with a 4-day ratio"; but what is this ratio?
Covid test numbers vs new cases detected?

Ro represents, on average, the number of people that a single infected person can be expected to transmit that disease to.

Reff is the actual" or "effective" rate that vaccinations is actually occurring. ie If there are public health measures (ie masks, social distancing, lockdowns) in place and/or vaccinations Reff will be less that Ro.

The Reff you see reported is actually an "estimated" Reff from cases as the exact number of infections is not ever known with Covid. In calculating it you could just go day by day. ie Take today'number of cases and divide by yesterdays. More than 1 is increasing. Less than 1 is decreasing. Health authorities want Reff to be less than 1 so that infections will over time decrease.

However only using a day by day number to calculate Reff would lead to wild fluctuations. So normally it will be smoothed by using a rolling 4 day average, or a 7 day average etc. In addition in more detailed estimates a k factor will be used to allow for variance. As different sources will calculate the Reff differently you will see different numbers generated due to what method they use to calculate the Reff.

In addition when case numbers are low Reff will not be accurate as again the number can bounce around too much to be reliable.

For more explanation see

What are k numbers, and how do they explain COVID superspreading?

Dr Nick Coatsworth suggests the R number in a densely populated suburb with high rises will have a different R number to a lower density suburb in the same city (see: What is the R number and why is it important?)

Yes the Ro would be higher where a person can infect more people.

ie So a person in a highrise would potentially be able to mix with more people and so they would potentially be in contact with more people in a given infectious period and so the Ro would be higher.

Similarly a population cohort with larger family sizes would have a higher Ro than a cohort with smaller family sizes.

 

[jase05]

Geelong, Surf Coast and Mitchell Shire into 7 day lockdown from this evening