Australian Reports of the Virus Spread

[kamchatsky]

It is in the interest of everyone not to create undue panic.



Nope, it was a youth camp run by the church. And religious services are not exempt from mask wearing indoors. Those conducting teh religious service can be unmasked, but not congregation attending.

From what I have seen on the photos, the non-mask wearing is in a tent that is outside of the building. Then the question is whether the tent (which is not a building) is considered indoor or outdoor, as it is dependent on the wording of the health order.

Again, the optics itself does not help.

 

[N860CR]

Again, the optics itself does not help.

It looks very poor, and given the backlash the PM and NSW Premier have been copping of late, it’s particularly bad. They’ve both made the life choice to be associated with that sort of thing, so this just adds fuel to the fires.

 

[Quickstatus]

" most intensive care beds are occupied by patients infected with the Delta strain or patients who are unvaccinated"

Given there are over 2000 ICU beds normally available in Australia and less than 400 in ICU with/for Covid, I would say most intensive care beds are NOT occupied by patients infected with Covid.
(Even if we say half of the beds are not usable due to staffing issues).

 

[Lynda2475]

Given there are over 2000 ICU beds normally available in Australia and less than 400 in ICU with/for Covid, I would say most intensive care beds are NOT occupied by patients infected with Covid.
(Even if we say half of the beds are not usable due to staffing issues).

If you read the full article is is only talking about the subset of ICU patients who have Covid, not all ICU beds. So it is saying most of the Covid cases in ICU have Delta or are unvaccinated.

It says nothing about what the overall percentage of covid vs non covid ICU patients in ICU are.

 

[Quickstatus]

non-mask wearing is in a tent that is outside of the building

Completely within the rules:

1) that is not considered indoors
2) masks can be taken off if exercising or in a dance class
3) masks can be taken off if people are hard of hearing which is the case at any dance party.

 

[Quickstatus]

It says nothing about what the overall percentage of covid vs non covid ICU patients in ICU are.

Exactly my point - it only talks about Covid as though the ICU is full of only Covid.

 

[Lynda2475]

Completely within the rules

Nope, the camp was basically hosting a concert/event in tent with several hundred people (not a dance class)

From Rules for people in NSW

Events and entertainment​

For other entertainment facilities, or indoor and outdoor recreation facilities with less than 1,000 people in attendance:

• You are not required to be fully vaccinated or carry vaccination evidence.
• COVID-19 Safe Check-in is not required.
• Face masks are required, subject to exemptions.

Effective 8 January 2022, singing and dancing in entertainment facilities and recreation facilities will not be permitted other than for:

• a performer who is performing or rehearsing on the premises; or
• a person who is instructing, or being instructed, in singing or dancing on the premises.

In case you want to class it as a religious ceremony:

Weddings, funerals and religious ceremonies​

Effective 8 January, singing and dancing at hospitality venues is no longer permitted other than for wedding services and receptions.

 

[RAM]

I got all the public hospital bed estimates off here

Australia: number of public hospital beds by state 2020 | Statista

As of June 2020, around 20.72 thousand beds were located in public hospitals in the Australian state of New South Wales.

www.statista.com

Thanks - this is a massive difference. A pity no journalists asked about the roughly 21,000 figure vs the 9,500 from Dr Chant. Using the figures from Dr Chant - the 'spare' bed unoccupied bed capacity of 1,500 as of last week now has been reduced somewhat by the around net 900 additional hospitalised with Covid-19 since then (1,600).

If transparency existed - it would be handy to know how many of the 6,400 non-Covid patients had been cleared or moved to Private hospitals.

 

[Lynda2475]

Exactly my point - it only talks about Covid as though the ICU is full of only Covid.

But this is a thread re covid spread, not ICU breakdown for other reasons.

I posted the info because the conversation in the posts ahead of it was around if particular variant was driving hospitalisations; and as we have know for some time being unvaccinated or acquiring delta have been responsible for the more adverse health outcomes than omicron so far.

 

[Quickstatus]

this is a thread re covid spread

I was referring to the actual article and it’s inadequacies

 

[Lynda2475]

I was referring to the actual article and it’s inadequacies

Yes but the article was also about covid not general state of our hospitals.

 

[Quickstatus]

was also about covid

And whenever the report about Covid in hospital they should promote accuracy by reporting the proportion in hospital who are Covid+

 

[lovetravellingoz]

NSW Health could easily provide more accurate figures - simply publish the number of RATs lodged as taken & positive yesterday, and provide the breakup by day (as well as updated total-to-date figures for positive RATs for each day from Jan 1st to current.

That way much greater certainty of claims of 'peaking', 'peaking shortly' etc etc could be demonstrated.

Not showing more accurate figures, as you correctly point out, is being done for a reason.

PCR reporting is also quite inaccurate at present in at least Vic and NSW, and probably elsewhere at present.

In Vic there is daily comment on which days the positive RATs were mainly actually swabbed on if reported.

However with PCR one needs to note:

• Many swabs do not even get tested now. If they go beyond 7 days they are in the main not tested. So reported case numbers will be under-estimates of what would have been the case if all swabs were tested. Gone are the days of the majority of the test results being for swabs taken within the previous 24 hours.
• The results that are reported are a blend of swab results over the previous 7 days. So just as with RAT's the daily number is a blend of results of swabs taken over many days. At least with RAT's the the RATs result is the date of when it was taken, even if the raw number reported is a blend.

The main point I am making that the "Daily" report numbers are now a lot less relevant than they were as both PCR and RATs reported results will not be a true reflection of what cases really should have been, and especially so on any given date. Moreso as one has no idea when the PCR's were actually swabbed. Today's daily PCR could well mainly be 6/7 days old.


It is probably better if one wants to track total case trends to monitor the active cases rather than daily cases.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

If you read the full article is is only talking about the subset of ICU patients who have Covid, not all ICU beds. So it is saying most of the Covid cases in ICU have Delta or are unvaccinated.

It says nothing about what the overall percentage of covid vs non covid ICU patients in ICU are.

If you click through the article you linked to the earlier referenced article there is no stated source, and only vague assertions:

ie

About quarter of unwell coronavirus patients arriving at hospital emergency departments are suspected of being infected with the Delta strain, even though the highly transmissible Omicron variant is dominating the tens of thousands of new infections being reported nationally.​

​

​

The last report based on actual data that I have seen was the information reported by Dr Kerry Chant earlier in this thread, and that is quite different from the "opinion" articles. Is there any update on that by her, or another from NSW Health, based on actual data?

ie

ABC reporting on Omicron from Dr Kerry Chant :

NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant says they have been working with a company to try to determine the proportion of Omicron and Delta variant infections.​

One of the pathology companies tracks this through the "S gene". She says the S gene drops out in Omicron cases.​

"We've got data from the company progressively to track the proportion of Delta and Omicron and what we are sitting at is about 90 per cent now. We think 90% of the cases are Omicron about 10 per cent are Delta," she says.​

"Obviously that can be different in different geographical areas but that gives the community a broader understanding.​

​

"We have also been doing some work to understand the proportion in ICU of both Delta and Omicron and what we have seen is that early in December, from some of our sampling and we will report this in full once all the genome sequencing results are back, but as an indication in early December from the 1st to the 7th, 90 per cent of the cases sequenced in ICU were Delta and 10 per cent were Omicron. In the week of the 29 December to the 4 January we have seen that shift to 33 per Delta and 67 per cent Omicron."​

So over 4 weeks, new cases in NSW ICU have gone from being 10% Omicron to 67% Omicron

 

[kamchatsky]

Nope, the camp was basically hosting a concert/event in tent with several hundred people (not a dance class)

From Rules for people in NSW

Events and entertainment​

For other entertainment facilities, or indoor and outdoor recreation facilities with less than 1,000 people in attendance:

• You are not required to be fully vaccinated or carry vaccination evidence.
• COVID-19 Safe Check-in is not required.
• Face masks are required, subject to exemptions.

Effective 8 January 2022, singing and dancing in entertainment facilities and recreation facilities will not be permitted other than for:

• a performer who is performing or rehearsing on the premises; or
• a person who is instructing, or being instructed, in singing or dancing on the premises.

In case you want to class it as a religious ceremony:

Weddings, funerals and religious ceremonies​

Effective 8 January, singing and dancing at hospitality venues is no longer permitted other than for wedding services and receptions.

Religious service is different from religious ceremony. So your argument did not apply.

NSW police did not fine them so chances are it is all technically legal. But Hillsong did say they will stop singing and dancing.

 

[OATEK]

PCR reporting is also quite inaccurate at present in at least Vic and NSW, and probably elsewhere at present.

In Vic there is daily comment on which days the positive RAT were mainly actually swabbed on if reported.

However with PCR one needs to note:

• Many swabs do not even get tested now. If they go beyond 7 days they are in the main not tested. So reported case numbers will be under-estimates of what would have been the case if all swabs were tested. Gone are the days of the majority of the test results being for swabs taken within the previous 24 hours.
• The results that are reported are a blend of swab results over the previous 7 days. So just as with RAT's the daily number is a blend of results of swabs taken over many days. At least with RAT's the the RATs result is the date of when it was taken, even if the raw number reported is a blend.

The main point I am making that the "Daily" report numbers are now a lot less relevant than they were as both PCR and RATs reported results will not be a true reflection of what cases really should have been, and especially so on any given date. Moreso as one has no idea when the PCR's were actually swabbed.


It is probably better if one wants to track total case trends to monitor the active cases rather than daily cases.

Not disagreeing about it being pointless trying to track total new infections on any day from here. But we might benefit from knowing something about what % of the community has been infected as we proceed to hope for some level of herd immunity.

The key issues now, and have been for a while, are the number of Hospital & ICU cases, and the impact on people with non-covid illness. Not OZ I know, but a relative in the UK has not been able to see his heart specialist in 2 years. Approaching 80, has already had a heart attack in the past, so feels vulnerable and forgotten. I suspect many like that here as well.

I have no doubt that Covid would have cut a much wider path of destruction through the community if we had not implemented public health initiatives to curb it. But we have not had excessive deaths in Australia, and it may work out that the decrease in flu deaths might have offset many of the covid deaths.

A friend has her father in an aged care facility, suffering dementia, and infected with covid. But because of vaccinations is doing quite well, and although the friend feels cut out of the loop because of iso rules at the facility, the father is unlikely to notice her absence. So we seem to have moved to a better place overall even in aged care which bore the brunt early on.

I am beginning to feel far more optimistic.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Not disagreeing about it being pointless trying to track total new infections on any day from here. But we might benefit from knowing something about what % of the community has been infected as we proceed to hope for some level of herd immunity.

The key issues now, and have been for a while, are the number of Hospital & ICU cases, and the impact on people with non-covid illness. Not OZ I know, but a relative in the UK has not been able to see his heart specialist in 2 years. Approaching 80, has already had a heart attack in the past, so feels vulnerable and forgotten. I suspect many like that here as well.

I have no doubt that Covid would have cut a much wider path of destruction through the community if we had not implemented public health initiatives to curb it. But we have not had excessive deaths in Australia, and it may work out that the decrease in flu deaths might have offset many of the covid deaths.

A friend has her father in an aged care facility, suffering dementia, and infected with covid. But because of vaccinations is doing quite well, and although the friend feels cut out of the loop because of iso rules at the facility, the father is unlikely to notice her absence. So we seem to have moved to a better place overall even in aged care which bore the brunt early on.

I am beginning to feel far more optimistic.

Yes we are seeing the wave wash through, but at present we really have little idea of whether that wave is still building, plateauing or is on the decline.

 

[OATEK]

Yes we are seeing the wave wash through, but at present we really have little idea of whether that wave is still building, plateauing or is on the decline.

England seems to have been falling for a while, and we are a little behind them so I think the wave has crested, but we all await some proofs before there can be certainty.

 

[Lynda2475]

Religious service is different from religious ceremony.

In my opinion it’s same same really, both are gatherings of people who believe in the existence of imaginary being/s.

My argument was that unmasked attendance at entertainment (a religious or other concert is entertainment for the purposes of restrictions) venue is against the rules, as is singing and dancing indoors (and I consider a tent indoors, its certainly not open air) unless you are the performer or it is a wedding reception.

Your spiritual beliefs will not protect you from covid, exercising some common sense in not singing/shouting/heavy breathing in close proximity to a bunch of strangers in an enclosed space just might.

Now its well known the PM has an affiliation with this oragnisation, and they may not have been fined but the behaviour was against the mask mandates and on the nose. Certainly doesnt demonstrate any care for fellow man which is supposed to be one of their ideals/beliefs.

 

[Lynda2475]

So over 4 weeks, new cases in NSW ICU have gone from being 10% Omicron to 67% Omicron

Of course you are applying a timeframe of your choosing to the article, which I acknowleged was an opinion piece when I posted it. And as usual you completly missed the point about there being cause for optimism, but that doesnt suit your doom and gloom we have no idea how bad it is narrative.

What portion of the Omicron ICU were not fully vaccinated (i.e. un vacicnated, 1 dose or 2 doses but over due for their booster)? In last 4 weeks 33% are confirmed Delta, so if 26% of the Omicron cases are unvaccinated (18/67%) the assertion that majority are Delta or unvaccinated holds true. Noting Dr Chant did not break the ICU omincron cases down by vaccination status.