Death rates from Covid19 in low income countries have been around double the death rates for the same age in high-income countries. This is not easy to see from headline news for two reasons – low income countries tend to have younger populations, so the population level death rates are lower, and low income countries also have much poorer statistical reporting, making it hard to tease out actual death rates.Continue Reading

Vaccination take-up rates are based on population estimates. For Australia as a whole, the ABS’s estimates of population are probably quite accurate. But the more localised the analysis, the greater the approximations required. Inaccuracies in population estimates are more likely in areas with large transient populations, particularly those who do not have citizenship or permanent residency. It’s probably not a coincidence that the Melbourne City Council area has the highest transient population and the lowest first dose vaccination rate in the whole of NSW and Victoria.Continue Reading

If everyone in Australia who can be vaccinated, is vaccinated, what can we expect when Covid19 becomes widespread in the population? There are likely to still be significant pressures on the hospital system, particularly if it happens too quickly.
If, after everyone in Australia who can be is vaccinated (I’ve assumed 95% of everyone 12 and over), everyone in Australia is exposed to Covid19, what can we expect from Covid19? We can expect around 400,000 – 600,000 eventual hospitalisations (60% of whom would have been vaccinated), with around 50,000 – 80,000 (70% of whom would have been vaccinated) of those ended up in ICU. Around 200,000 – 400,000 people are likely to end up with Long Covid, the majority of whom (150,000 – 250,000) will be of working age. And around 15,000 – 25,000 (50% of whom would have been vaccinated) deaths from Covid are likely to occur.  How long will that take? That depends on how well we control the spread of Covid19.Continue Reading

How does Australia’s 2021 Covid19 wave compare to 2020? So far, cases are around three times higher and deaths are around a third of last year.

Today’s analysis is a quick graph. I’ve seen this graph from lots of other countries, but now here in Australia our latest wave is big enough to categorically show that vaccination has made a difference compared with the Victorian wave last year. As you can see, in 2020, deaths lagged cases by around 2-3 weeks. This year, the death rates compared with numbers of cases is substantially lower, and the rate also looks as if it is slightly improving.Continue Reading

In NSW in this wave of Covid19, are hospitals starting to ration care and send more sick people home as they run out of space? The statistics suggest that hospital in the home is being used more and more to take the pressure off hospitals. But some of the reduction in hospitalised cases could also be vaccination starting to reduce the seriousness of Covid19 illnesses.Continue Reading

Are the Doherty Institute assumptions about vaccine effectiveness optimistic? And does it matter? Yes and yes. So we should monitor the spread of Covid19 closely as vaccination rates increase, and use 70% and 80% adult vaccination rates as guides, rather than stick to then as rigid rules to decide how to ease restrictions across Australia.

A reminder that the Doherty Institute report makes it clear that to control the Delta variant, ongoing public health and social measures such as contact tracing, isolating, and restraints on social mixing (compared with pre virus days) are needed no matter what vaccination rate is achieved, so a gradual guided relaxation of measures is what is recommended anyway.Continue Reading

The Covid19 outbreak in NSW continues to grow despite a gradually tightening lockdown. The current doubling time is about 11 days, meaning that my simple model is projecting 1,000 cases a day by the end of August. It seems the only way out is vaccination. How much vaccination? The DohertyContinue Reading

Today the IPCC released its sixth assessment report, and I’ve had a look at what it says about extremes – weather and climate. In this land of drought and flooding rain, extreme weather is already damaging, and the IPCC report makes it clear that it is going to get worse – the extremes get more extreme faster than the medians move. Continue Reading