Australian Reports of the Virus Spread

[Quickstatus]

journalist to do a bit of journalisting and figure it out.

Maybe dangle a "free" airline J/F seat review assignment....

...............

Anniversary of lockdowns
Interesting that no State government or media outlet have marked the first anniversary of the respective state government lockdowns

 

[N860CR]

Maybe dangle a "free" airline J/F seat review assignment....

...............

Anniversary of lockdowns
Interesting that no State government or media outlet have marked the first anniversary of the respective state government lockdowns

I’m sure there are a select few popping a champagne while hiding under their doona

 

[RAM]

There is no conspiracy and as mentioned by others, if someone is felt to benefit from ICU in NSW they will (almost always) get the bed (even if it means someone needs to be moved to another hospital or someone else's complex elective surgery get postponed)

No conspiracy theory (good deflection attempt though ).

Only one 90+ yr old admitted to ICU with Covid in NSW (and that one person was FACT related) by late 2021 - despite significant numbers dying. Contrast that with the dozens of those aged 80 to 89 admitted to ICU in NSW with Covid-19 (all in the same NSW Health statistics report).

If you believe otherwise then please provide NSW Health figures/link that show more than 1 Covid admission into ICU for a 90yr or older person by late 2021 - if you wish to validate your deflection.

 

[RAM]

this virus is far less severe than viruses like influenza or incidents such as falls in aged care facilities. It does not warrant the mass panic we are still trying to push.

WRONG.

From early 2020 to 30 June 2022 - under the same circumstances, conditions, restrictions, lockdowns, locations, aka Australia:

Deaths from/with Influenza < 100.
Deaths from/with Covid-19 approx 10,000.

So how, exactly, can you claim it is less severe than influenza?

Covid-19 mortality rate is 100 times larger than for influenza mortality over the same period & circumstances.

Especially since the bulk of Covid-19 deaths have been since January 1st, 2022 & been since over 90% of the population has received 2 or more Covid-19 vaccinations whereas bulk of population did not have flu vaccination?

 

[drron]

WRONG.

From early 2020 to 30 June 2022 - under the same circumstances, conditions, restrictions, lockdowns, locations, aka Australia:

Deaths from/with Influenza < 100.
Deaths from/with Covid-19 approx 10,000.

So how, exactly, can you claim it is less severe than influenza?

Covid-19 mortality rate is 100 times larger than for influenza mortality over the same period & circumstances.

Especially since the bulk of Covid-19 deaths have been since January 1st, 2022 & been since over 90% of the population has received 2 or more Covid-19 vaccinations whereas bulk of population did not have flu vaccination?

Cherry picked. From 2017 to 2019 more than a thousand died of flu in australia and none from Covid.
And if you are an under 5 in Australia there have been 4 deaths from Flu this year and 1 from covid.

 

[N860CR]

WRONG.

From early 2020 to 30 June 2022 - under the same circumstances, conditions, restrictions, lockdowns, locations, aka Australia:

Deaths from/with Influenza < 100.
Deaths from/with Covid-19 approx 10,000.

So how, exactly, can you claim it is less severe than influenza?

Covid-19 mortality rate is 100 times larger than for influenza mortality over the same period & circumstances.

Especially since the bulk of Covid-19 deaths have been since January 1st, 2022 & been since over 90% of the population has received 2 or more Covid-19 vaccinations whereas bulk of population did not have flu vaccination?

No, not wrong.

Mortality rate of less than 0.1% assuming case reporting is correct (which we know it isn’t). That also ignores the fact that the majority of “covid deaths” have occurred in those who were in end of life care and wouldn’t have been taken down by a fart in the wrong direction.

I agree that the data reporting is poor and there is clearly a motive they’re.

 

[andye]

This infographic comes from a (quite good I thought) Guardian article Covid deaths in Australia: data reveals demographics hit hardest since pandemic began – interactive

Shows the distribution of deaths by age. Do note the lower bar which shows the proportion of population in each age group

 

[RAM]

Cherry picked. From 2017 to 2019 more than a thousand died of flu in australia and none from Covid.
And if you are an under 5 in Australia there have been 4 deaths from Flu this year and 1 from covid.

I expect better than that from you drron. No cherry picking - comparing like-with-like.

Under same circumstances etc etc. You have cherry picked a time when there was no Covid-19 therefore you made an apples with oranges comparison with totally different settings.

Shame.

Post automatically merged: Aug 7, 2022

No, not wrong.

Mortality rate of less than 0.1% assuming case reporting is correct (which we know it isn’t). That also ignores the fact that the majority of “covid deaths” have occurred in those who were in end of life care and wouldn’t have been taken down by a fart in the wrong direction.

I agree that the data reporting is poor and there is clearly a motive they’re.

Sorry but under 100 deaths from the flu vs around 10,000 from Covid shows which has a much higher fatality rate across the entire population over the exact same time period and exact same conditions.

Death data is hard to fudge.

 

[Pushka]

Death data is hard to fudge.

But it is being misrepresented. An example being SIL undergoing brain surgery from a fall and not expected to survive. She tested positive for Covid on admission as she’d had it four weeks earlier. She was recorded as a positive and in hospital but her potential demise had absolutely nothing to do with Covid.

 

[Vic]

WRONG.

From early 2020 to 30 June 2022 - under the same circumstances, conditions, restrictions, lockdowns, locations, aka Australia:

Deaths from/with Influenza < 100.
Deaths from/with Covid-19 approx 10,000.

So how, exactly, can you claim it is less severe than influenza?

Covid-19 mortality rate is 100 times larger than for influenza mortality over the same period & circumstances.

Especially since the bulk of Covid-19 deaths have been since January 1st, 2022 & been since over 90% of the population has received 2 or more Covid-19 vaccinations whereas bulk of population did not have flu vaccination?

Except the confounding factors.
Social distancing, hand washing, masks and all the controls for Covid are also controls for Influenza.

So influenza is down because we're doing controls to reduce covid. but agree the conditions are the same.

But , MASSIVE BUT anyone claiming covid is less severe than influenza is kidding themselves. The controls has significantly reduce flu deaths, but there are 100 times as many covid deaths. BOTH require the same controls.
Comparing to falls a nursing homes is just ludicrous.

Cherry picked. From 2017 to 2019 more than a thousand died of flu in australia and none from Covid.
And if you are an under 5 in Australia there have been 4 deaths from Flu this year and 1 from covid.

Cherry picking yourself, no Covid pre 2019. So not a surprise there were no deaths.
Just ignore the fact that covid controls have significantly reduced flu deaths, but there are still vastly more people dying from covid that died from flu in your cheery picked 2017-19 period. What other factors were at play in those two years, that you've cherry picked?
How many deaths 2009 to 2019.
then cherry picking one age group....

 

[Vic]

But it is being misrepresented. An example being SIL undergoing brain surgery from a fall and not expected to survive. She tested positive for Covid on admission as she’d had it four weeks earlier. She was recorded as a positive and in hospital but her potential demise had absolutely nothing to do with Covid.

Yes she is recorded as covid positive or Suspect covid, so staff know they have to take extra infection control precautions. Suspected respiratory precautions it's called. That has ZERO to do with death data.
Did your sister in law die? What did the coroner record as cause of death?
I'll bet $100 it is not going to be Covid.

 

[drron]

Except the confounding factors.
Social distancing, hand washing, masks and all the controls for Covid are also controls for Influenza.

So influenza is down because we're doing controls to reduce covid. but agree the conditions are the same.

But , MASSIVE BUT anyone claiming covid is less severe than influenza is kidding themselves. The controls has significantly reduce flu deaths, but there are 100 times as many covid deaths. BOTH require the same controls.
Comparing to falls a nursing homes is just ludicrous.


Cherry picking yourself, no Covid pre 2019. So not a surprise there were no deaths.
Just ignore the fact that covid controls have significantly reduced flu deaths, but there are still vastly more people dying from covid that died from flu in your cheery picked 2017-19 period. What other factors were at play in those two years, that you've cherry picked?
How many deaths 2009 to 2019.
then cherry picking one age group....

typical keyboard warriors just making stuff up. And you claim to be a medical doctor, right? And yet you write this nonsense.

All I say is work in a flu ward one flu season and see if you still think flu isn't as severe.
The reason for more covid deaths is it's increased transmission rates. Not much difference in mortality rates.

 

[JohnK]

All I say is work in a flu ward one flu season and see if you still think flu isn't as severe.
The reason for more covid deaths is it's increased transmission rates. Not much difference in mortality rates.

So ignore both and move on?

Two wrongs don't make a right.

 

[drron]

So ignore both and move on?

Two wrongs don't make a right.

Well nearly everyone ignored the flu precovid.

 

[N860CR]

I expect better than that from you drron. No cherry picking - comparing like-with-like.

Under same circumstances etc etc. You have cherry picked a time when there was no Covid-19 therefore you made an apples with oranges comparison with totally different settings.

Shame.

Post automatically merged: Aug 7, 2022

Sorry but under 100 deaths from the flu vs around 10,000 from Covid shows which has a much higher fatality rate across the entire population over the exact same time period and exact same conditions.

Death data is hard to fudge.

Rate. That is the key word. Highly transmissible, yes, but not highly fatal.

 

[drron]

So let's compare mortality rates.
Figutes for covid -9.64 million cases,12,231 deaths. A mortality rate of 0.13%.

Google Search

Now look at flu. @917 was a bad year but 2018 was worse. So in 2017 there were 251,147 cases.

Celebrating five years of the Doherty Institute – Impact report - Doherty Institute

www.doherty.edu.au

deaths are often quoted as 754 but the ABS says 1254. Why the difference? Well 754 was the number of primary deaths from flu -mortality rate 0.3%.
But 1254 was the primary plus secondary deaths from flu so the number that should be compared to the covid figure. And that is a mortality rate of 0.5%.
So do you still think the flu is much milder than covis?

 

[Vic]

All I say is work in a flu ward one flu season and see if you still think flu isn't as severe.
The reason for more covid deaths is it's increased transmission rates. Not much difference in mortality rates.

Exactly my point, much higher transmission rates.
Your talking about morbidity of flu for individuals. That doesn't really inform us about transmission rates, nor the comparative numbers in a covid ward vs a flu ward. Nor does the morbidity of flu inform us about morbidity for covid.

Morbidity and mortality, again different things

 

[Vic]

So let's compare mortality rates.
Figutes for covid -9.64 million cases,12,231 deaths. A mortality rate of 0.13%.

Google Search

Now look at flu. @917 was a bad year but 2018 was worse. So in 2017 there were 251,147 cases.

Celebrating five years of the Doherty Institute – Impact report - Doherty Institute

www.doherty.edu.au

deaths are often quoted as 754 but the ABS says 1254. Why the difference? Well 754 was the number of primary deaths from flu -mortality rate 0.3%.
But 1254 was the primary plus secondary deaths from flu so the number that should be compared to the covid figure. And that is a mortality rate of 0.5%.
So do you still think the flu is much milder than covis?

Rightio. And the number of flu deaths 2020 to 2022? Someone above said 100. Lets assume that's correct, it could be wrong.
So flu deaths had an 87% to 92% reduction. At the same time that we introduced controls for respiratory disease transmission across the general population. That demonstrates the controls were effective at reducing transmission. Which we can infer means covid transmission was similarly reduced.
So how many people didn't die from Covid because of the controls that were instituted? How many people got covid post vaccination that would have died if they got it unvaxed?

How many people would have died from car accidents, heart attacks etc if the hospitals were overwhelmed with covid patients?
Those stats say ~40% of the population have had covid. The hospitals had been just keeping up with demand for that level of infections. It was been touch and go in some of the "waves". So how much of the population would've been infected if nothing was done? 80%? 100%? How would the healthcare system cope with that?

Trying to jump to the conclusion that controls were not required based on statistics with controls in place is not valid. I'll say the same to others - NOT highly fatal because we put controls in place.

Just like Y2K, the fact that we did something and prevented the worse outcome does not mean the risk didn't exist.

edit:
If there was a similar reduction in deaths for covid as for flu due to the controls, that points to 122000 deaths due to covid, uncontrolled.

 

[Lynda2475]

The reason flu cases and deaths were so low in 2020 and 2021 was because borders were closed throughout the flu season, the two biggest states were locked down and flu vaccination particularly in 2020 was much higher than usual due to covid panic. Flu cant get in and circulates if people do not have freedom of movement.

The science clearly shows that the influenza a and b have higher % of death per 100 infections than Covid.

If you are fearful wear a mask (not that it is likely to stop you getting omicron) everyone else has moved on.

 

[Princess Fiona]

The reason flu cases and deaths were so low in 2020 and 2021 was because borders were closed throughout the flu season, the two biggest states were locked down and flu vaccination particularly in 2020 was much higher than usual due to covid panic. Flu cant get in and circulates if people do not have freedom of movement.

The science clearly shows that the influenza a and b have higher % of death per 100 infections than Covid.

If you are fearful wear a mask (not that it is likely to stop you getting omicron) everyone else has moved on.

We don’t test everyone in the population for Influenza never have done, no drive in test centres, no RATS nothing.
We did at some point test nearly everyone for Covid so IFR/CFR comparisons between the two are meaningless.