Despite the rhetoric from the federal election campaign trail citing the pandemic, the number of cases and hospitalizations tell a different story.
But whether the figures still represent the severity of the disease, or a more complex picture, appears to be up for debate.
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Professor Adrian EstermanAn epidemiologist at the University of South Australia said the recent spike in cases with the new Omicron sub-variants was a clear indicator that COVID was still a threat.
“The rising number of cases will inevitably result in more people being hospitalized and longer with COVID. It is real and is happening now.”
However, the opinion of alternative experts suggests that since February, the increasing number of patients coming to the hospital instead of Kovid indicates that the severity of the virus is changing.
“Without the massive COVID surge we have in 2020-21, the mix of patients is very high,” said Professor Christine JenkinsHead of the Respiratory Group at the George Institute for Global Health.
“This is a significant change and is the reason why many hospitals are going back to the approach of more general wards with fewer dedicated COVID-19 wards. This approach to bed management is taking some pressure off emergency departments”.
– Professor Jenkins
While Australia’s Covid death toll is only getting more complicated since the January surge, according to infectious disease experts alan cheng,
Professor Cheng said hospitals with mixed diagnoses tend to have more complex patients, making reporting of COVID deaths more difficult.
“There are three groups in the mix: those brought in after an accident who happen to test positive; those who come down with severe COVID-19 (not many and often without vaccination); And the group in the middle with some other medical problem that has been destabilized by Covid-19,”
“A patient in the ICU whose heart failure was exacerbated by COVID-19 and who died would most likely be counted as a COVID-19 death,” That, he said, makes reporting difficult.
So, it stands to reason that if Australia continues to report more cases of the BA.4 and BA.5 strains, we are also likely to experience a higher number of accidental COVID-19 cases.
Meanwhile, Covid cases and hospitalizations in Australia and New Zealand look like this:
Western Australia
- New cases: 182
- Covid related deaths: 6
- Hospital and ICU admissions: 271 / 9
northern region
- New cases: 451
- Covid related deaths: 0
- Hospital and ICU admissions: 38/1
Australian Capital Territory
- New cases: 1,085
- Covid related deaths: 0
- Hospital and ICU admissions: 70/4
queensland
- New cases: 8,045
- Covid related deaths: 11
- Hospital and ICU admissions: 467/14
new South Wales
- New cases: 18,529
- Covid related deaths: 21
- Hospital and ICU admissions: 1,529/62
Victoria
- New cases: 11,596
- Covid related deaths: 14
- Hospital and ICU admissions: 492/29
South Australia
- New cases: 3,894
- Covid related deaths: 4
- Hospital and ICU admissions: 218/11
Tasmania
- New cases: 1,086
- Covid related deaths: 0
- Hospital and ICU admissions: 46/3
New Zealand
- New cases: 8,609
- Covid related deaths: 20
- Hospital and ICU admissions: 386/4
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