Covid 19 -

[Pooka]

We did it VIC! Well done. We have beaten NSW, and now WE hold the record for the most cases of the Domicron variant in a single day. 51,356 in one day! Congratulations to the NSW government for "letting it rip", and to all the Victorians who unknowingly participated.

[FoxtrotGolfXray 5.0]

Originally Posted by Pooka

We did it VIC! Well done. We have beaten NSW, and now WE hold the record for the most cases of the Domicron variant in a single day. 51,356 in one day! Congratulations to the NSW government for "letting it rip", and to all the Victorians who unknowingly participated.

Yes and no. According to a report on the ABC News site, about half of those results were from RATs, and 'only' about 6000 of those were results from yesterday. The remaining were RAT results from earlier in the week.

So, the daily figure is inflated a little, but the overall test results still stand.

[GO FURTHER]

Originally Posted by Pooka

We did it VIC! Well done. We have beaten NSW, and now WE hold the record for the most cases of the Domicron variant in a single day. 51,356 in one day! Congratulations to the NSW government for "letting it rip", and to all the Victorians who unknowingly participated.

Expect the daily numbers reported to now increase significantly with the RAT self-reporting system via online and phone now opened.

The RAT numbers have been reported by the Department of Health for the first time on Saturday and added to the PCR results.

Just shows that the true number of cases in the community has always been higher than previously reported with PCR testing alone.

Just wait till RAT testing kits are available and in stock everywhere.

[slowsnake]

I suppose the Chemist shops will have to be careful how they stock their shelves!
Make sure they are not near the pregnancy testing kits!..lol
Have folk peeing all over them otherwise!.....

[prydey]

Originally Posted by GO FURTHER

Expect the daily numbers reported to now increase significantly with the RAT self-reporting system via online and phone now opened.

The RAT numbers have been reported by the Department of Health for the first time on Saturday and added to the PCR results.

Just shows that the true number of cases in the community has always been higher than previously reported with PCR testing alone.

Just wait till RAT testing kits are available and in stock everywhere.

Just more evidence as to why the key metric that should be followed is hospitalisations.

More and more cases appearing just means the evidence that the severity is less with Omicron is increasing by the day, as seen in other countries around the world. Not just a little bit, but reportedly 50-70% less severe than delta.

About time the media stopped all the scaremongering and report on the things that actually matter.

I'm not making light of Covid, but we have come a long way since it first hit, and the latest mutation (as with pretty much every virus since the world began) is significantly less severe and for most people it will be no worse than a mild flu. Yes, there will be a percentage that suffer more adverse reactions, but this is no different to a lot of illnesses.

[russellw]

Originally Posted by prydey

I'm not making light of Covid, but we have come a long way since it first hit, and the latest mutation (as with pretty much every virus since the world began) is significantly less severe and for most people it will be no worse than a mild flu. Yes, there will be a percentage that suffer more adverse reactions, but this is no different to a lot of illnesses.

I think the jury is out on that one still. It is fair to say that it is killing less people however it is unclear yet whether that's vaccine efficacy, the fact that the average age of cases has dropped by about 25% (thus a less vulnerable range of people) or some other factor.

Interestingly, NSW data shows that unvaccinated people are 6.9x more likely to be hospitalised with Omicron but that's way less than the 25x for the Delta variant - although UK data indicates that the numbers rise dramatically 14 days post booster to about 20x.

More specifically, in the period up to 2/1/22:

1,204 people were in hospital, 30% of whom were unvaccinated.
95 people were in ICU, 48.4% of whom were unvaccinated.
19.9% of all ICU beds were taken by COVID patients.

The hospitalisation rates per 1M people (aged 12+) are:
83.4 for vaccinated and 578.2 for unvaccinated (6.9x) while the ICU rates are 4.7 and 82.5 respectively (a factor of 17.5x).

They don't include mortality data in that analysis.