COVID-19 cases are rising across Australia. Experts say an eighth wave has begun

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

 

In the last reporting period, COVID-19 numbers increased in all Australian states and territories. Experts say it marks the beginning of a new wave of infections.

2 November 2023

...

"According to the Department of Health and Aged Care, surveillance indicators suggest COVID-19 transmission has been gradually increasing since mid to late-August.
 

In the week ending 24 October, 6,550 cases of COVID-19 were reported across Australia, an average of 936 cases per day. This marked an increase of 23.6 per cent nationally.
 

In the same period, the number of people hospitalised with COVID-19 increased by an average of 17.5 per cent to 1,245."

 

(more)

 

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/covid-19-cases-are-rising-around-australia-are-we-in-an-eighth-wave-of-infections/y9fn676a7

 

 

A video news report on the same:

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-06/evidence-suggests-covid-cases-are-climbing-again/103069502

 

AND

 

"...it's also important to note that these graphs only chart confirmed COVID-19 cases, which may be much lower than the actual number of cases due to a drop in mandatory reporting."

 

 

 

Victorians advised to wear a mask

"On October 26, Victoria's acting chief health officer Christian McGrath announced community transmission of COVID-19 had increased to levels not observed since May.

Dr McGrath has suggested all Melburnians consider donning masks again in public places."

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-03/covid-wave-incoming-case-figures-reporting-booster/103054678

 

[BKKBike09]

1 hour ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Victorians advised to wear a mask

"On October 26, Victoria's acting chief health officer Christian McGrath announced community transmission of COVID-19 had increased to levels not observed since May.

Dr McGrath has suggested all Melburnians consider donning masks again in public places."

 

Let's get these two in the ring together. I know who I'm rooting for.

 

"NSW Health's director of Communicable Diseases, Dr Christine Selvey, says modelling suggests a new wave of COVID will peak into December. Dr Selvey only went as far as recommending face masks in public if symptomatic." 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-03/covid-wave-incoming-case-figures-reporting-booster/103054678

 

[impulse]

Is that the number of patients hospitalized WITH Covid, or the number of patients hospitalized FOR Covid?

 

[rattlesnake]

With over 95% of the Australian population being vaccinated, they should be just fine. Or am I missing something?

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Yes, you're clearly missing something:

 

The public health authorities around the world have been very clear in stressing that two original COVID vaccines, so-called primary vaccination only, typically given long ago one to two years ago or more at this point, are going to have very minimal protection against the current Omicron variants, especially when it comes to just reducing infections (though supposedly somewhat better against serious illness).

 

As they've said repeatedly, to be well protected, you ideally need to have your original vaccinations PLUS a third booster shot, typically with last year's 2nd gen bivalent vaccines.... and now are recommending additional vaccination with the newest monovalent vaccines keyed to the latest circulating XBB descendant strains.

 

I'm guessing the share of the Australian population that meet the criteria of those kinds of vaccinations is pretty small, especially since the new monovalent vaccines haven't been made publicly available yet in Australia.

 

"In October, the Therapeutic Goods Administration assessed and provisionally approved new monovalent COVID-19 vaccines, but further assessment is ongoing.

 

Availability dates have not yet been made public, but the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation is expected to provide updated advice in the coming weeks."

 

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/covid-19-cases-are-rising-around-australia-are-we-in-an-eighth-wave-of-infections/y9fn676a7

 

It's very much like the flu vaccine. Getting vaccinated two years ago or last year really isn't going to help so much for this season's flu. COVID vaccines are likely going to become an annual thing, and seem headed toward being combined with annual flu vaccine shots.

 

Edited November 6, 2023 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

How long will the COVID-19 vaccine last once I have had 2 doses?

"Protection against getting infected does appear to wane over time. Protection against death and severe disease also drops over time, but more slowly. You can increase your protection by getting a booster from 6 months after your primary course.

 

All adults can get a booster if it’s been 6 months or longer since their last COVID-19 booster or confirmed infection (whichever is most recent) for additional protection against severe illness from COVID.

 

This is particularly recommended for people at higher risk of severe illness, including:

• everyone 65 years and over
• everyone 18 years and over with medical comorbidities, disability or complex health needs."

https://www.health.gov.au/our-work/covid-19-vaccines/is-it-true/is-it-true-how-long-will-the-covid-19-vaccine-last-once-i-have-had-2-doses

 

[Amethyst]

A post making an unsourced and unsubstantiated claim contravening the forum's Community Standards has been removed.

 

"In factual areas such as news forums and current affairs topics member content that is claimed or portrayed as a fact should be supported by a link to a relevant reputable source."

[rattlesnake]

56 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Yes, you're clearly missing something:

 

The public health authorities around the world have been very clear in stressing that two original COVID vaccines, so-called primary vaccination only, typically given long ago one to two years ago or more at this point, are going to have very minimal protection against the current Omicron variants, especially when it comes to just reducing infections (though supposedly somewhat better against serious illness).

 

As they've said repeatedly, to be well protected, you ideally need to have your original vaccinations PLUS a third booster shot, typically with last year's 2nd gen bivalent vaccines.... and now are recommending additional vaccination with the newest monovalent vaccines keyed to the latest circulating XBB descendant strains.

 

I'm guessing the share of the Australian population that meet the criteria of those kinds of vaccinations is pretty small, especially since the new monovalent vaccines haven't been made publicly available yet in Australia.

 

"In October, the Therapeutic Goods Administration assessed and provisionally approved new monovalent COVID-19 vaccines, but further assessment is ongoing.

 

Availability dates have not yet been made public, but the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation is expected to provide updated advice in the coming weeks."

 

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/covid-19-cases-are-rising-around-australia-are-we-in-an-eighth-wave-of-infections/y9fn676a7

 

It's very much like the flu vaccine. Getting vaccinated two years ago or last year really isn't going to help so much for this season's flu. COVID vaccines are likely going to become an annual thing, and seem headed toward being combined with annual flu vaccine shots.

 

 

What a brilliant business model!

 

[rabas]

15 hours ago, rattlesnake said:

With over 95% of the Australian population being vaccinated, they should be just fine. Or am I missing something?

 

Welcome on board!

[mohlite]

The covid vaccines were never tested to determine if they prevented the spread of the covid virus. Despite that, many claimed you won't get covid if vaccinated. They lied, obviously.

 

"Calling on Americans to get vaccinated against Covid-19, Biden said, “If you’re vaccinated, you’re not going to be hospitalized, you’re not going to be in the ICU unit and you’re not going to die.” In another exchange moments later, Biden said that even if vaccinated people do “catch the virus,” they are “not likely to get sick.”

 

But then, during a third exchange, Biden said that since the vaccines “cover” the highly transmissible Delta variant of the virus: “You’re not going to get Covid if you have these vaccinations.”

 

"Rob Roos, a conservative European Parliament member from the Netherlands, wrote in a viral tweet on Oct. 11, “BREAKING: In COVID hearing, Pfizer director admits: vaccine was never tested on preventing transmission. ‘Getting vaccinated for others’ was always a lie.”

 

https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/verify/vaccines-verify/claims-pfizer-didnt-know-if-covid-vaccine-prevented-transmission-missing-context-fact-check/536-aaf563f5-2286-44d4-ae0b-2c71812b84e4

 

 

Pfizer’s clinical trial for its COVID-19 vaccine was designed to evaluate how effective the shot was at preventing infection, not transmission.

 

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/22/politics/fact-check-biden-cnn-town-hall-july/index.html

 

 

 

[Ben Zioner]

Australia must be the first country that has more hospitalisations than cases..

 

That's from   the OP's graphs.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

On 11/6/2023 at 2:39 PM, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Ben Zioner said:

Australia must be the first country that has more hospitalisations than cases..

 

That's from   the OP's graphs.

 

 

 

You're reading the meaning of the two charts wrong.

 

The first chart is DAILY NEW COVID CASES based on a 7-day rolling average.

 

The second chart is total numbers of COVID cases then in hospital (not daily new COVID hospitalizations) on a 7-day rolling average. The COVID hospitalized being counted in this tally could have been in hospital at that point for one day, one week, one month or longer.

 

Thus those are two different kinds of figures that aren't comparable with each other.

 

 

Edited November 29, 2023 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

2 hours ago, mohlite said:

The covid vaccines were never tested to determine if they prevented the spread of the covid virus. Despite that, many claimed you won't get covid if vaccinated.

 

 

Regardless of the overstatements by Biden, per Reuters, many others made clear to the public just what was and wasn't known at the time:

 

"As clinical trial data on vaccine efficacy against the main endpoints – symptomatic and severe disease -- began to be released in November 2020 (here), researchers and regulators made clear in public statements that the vaccines’ effect on virus transmission remained unknown (here)."

 

However, as it turned out in the real world:

 

VACCINE DID REDUCE TRANSMISSION

 

"Within months of the vaccine hitting the market, researchers in the UK (here) and Israel (here) began publishing studies suggesting that the Pfizer vaccine was reducing transmission of the virus."

 

AND

 

"Evidence continued to build in 2021 that the mRNA-based vaccines prevented infections and onward transmission of the virus (here). But with the advent that year of the coronavirus Delta variant, plus waning immunity from vaccines delivered at the start of the year, protection against infection and transmission was seen to be dropping, although not eliminated, as previously described by Reuters Fact Check (here)."

 

https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-pfizer-vaccine-transmission/fact-check-preventing-transmission-never-required-for-covid-vaccines-initial-approval-pfizer-vax-did-reduce-transmission-of-early-variants-idUSL1N31F20E/

 

So even though the vaccines were not approved on the basis of clinical trials that evaluated reducing transmission, that's in fact what the vaccines did do and accomplish in the real world, particularly in the pre-Omicron period the pandemic.  Not 100% prevention of transmission... but sizable factors of prevention, depending on the varying details involved.

 

So yes, when people got their COVID vaccines, they were doing so BOTH to help protect themselves, AND to help protect others around them.

 

The anti-vaxers here love to focus on Biden's vaccine overstatements, but somehow they don't much like to talk about the millions of lives saved and the many many millions more worldwide who avoided serious COVID illness and hospitalization by being vaccinated.

 

Just the U.S. as one example:

Two Years of U.S. COVID-19 Vaccines Have Prevented Millions of Hospitalizations and Deaths

...

"From December 2020 through November 2022, we estimate that the COVID-19 vaccination program in the U.S. prevented more than 18.5 million additional hospitalizations and 3.2 million additional deaths. Without vaccination, there would have been nearly 120 million more COVID-19 infections. The vaccination program also saved the U.S. $1.15 trillion (Credible Interval: $1.10 trillion–$1.19 trillion) (data not shown) in medical costs that would otherwise have been incurred."

 

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2022/two-years-covid-vaccines-prevented-millions-deaths-hospitalizations

 

Edited November 29, 2023 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[Pouatchee]

i went over your 2 linked articles. cant find anything on how many deaths...is this new wave as deadly?

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

9 minutes ago, Pouatchee said:

i went over your 2 linked articles. cant find anything on how many deaths...is this new wave as deadly?

 

 

Note:

 

"The number of deaths occurring in August and September 2023 is not reflective of the true total and will increase as additional death registrations are received by the ABS. Other time periods may also change if the death registration process has been delayed."

 

 

https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/covid-19-mortality-australia-deaths-registered-until-30-september-2023

 

Edited November 29, 2023 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[Pouatchee]

damn! numbers are still high...

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

3 minutes ago, Pouatchee said:

damn! numbers are still high...

 

Hey, there's no longer an official "pandemic" and COVID isn't an issue any more, so some people keep saying.... (sarcasm alert!)

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

The Australia COVID stats in the OP covered the period thru Oct. 24...  Below is a more recent update thru mid Nov. just for New South Wales (NSW):

 

November 23, 2023

 

"NSW is in the grip of its eighth COVID-19 wave as the latest NSW Health data reveals that infection rates have doubled since the beginning of October.

 

Released on Thursday, the data shows a 16 per cent increase in community infections in the fortnight to November 18, compared with the previous reporting period, for those who have tested positive for COVID-19 via PCR testing.

...

 

The total number of people presenting at emergency departments in the past fortnight was also higher than for the previous two weeks, NSW Health said, but the proportion who required admission remained stable, indicating that the severity of the virus circulating in the community remained unchanged.

 

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/what-you-need-to-know-about-covid-and-vaccines-now-20231123-p5em8v.html

 

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

"...provisional statistics show there have been about 3,000 registered COVID-19 deaths in Australia from January to July 2023.

 

Older people and those with weaker immune systems are expected to remain at greatest risk of developing severe COVID during this current wave.

...

...by the end of October 2023, it was estimated only one-quarter of Australians aged 65-74, one-third of people aged 75 or over and fewer than half (45 per cent) of people in aged care had received a COVID vaccine in the past six months."

 

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/a-new-covid-19-wave-has-hit-australia-heres-what-you-can-expect-this-time/86sr64u7r

 

[mohlite]

On 11/29/2023 at 11:34 AM, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Regardless of the overstatements by Biden, per Reuters, many others made clear to the public just what was and wasn't known at the time:

That's a pathetic excuse and explanation for something as serious as lying to Americans and the world about health implications and the potential for serious consequences including death. Their ulterior motives, in casting an outrageous and criminal lie should be obvious to you by now and instead of creating a false narrative and total mis-information they should have said nothing of sort and maybe said "we don't know yet".

 

Further, you should check hospitalization and deaths by vaccination status compiled and reported by authorities in NSW that shows no less than 85% of covid deaths are in vaccinated and boosted people. Hospitalizations, those admitted to ICU follow the same trend.

https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/covid-19/Documents/weekly-covid-overview-20221231.pdf

 The numbers back up the reality that mRNA vaccinations are largely ineffective as borne out by the very few countries that actually posted the data. Silly to suggest and even to believe mRNA covid vaccinations protect or preserve life. There is no evidence to prove it.

.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

1 hour ago, mohlite said:

Further, you should check hospitalization and deaths by vaccination status compiled and reported by authorities in NSW that shows no less than 85% of covid deaths are in vaccinated and boosted people. Hospitalizations, those admitted to ICU follow the same trend.

 

Apparently, other that posting the one chart above, you didn't bother to read what the report actually says about the data you posted:

 

"COVID-19 vaccines are very effective in preventing the severe impacts of infections with the virus. Over 95 per cent of people aged 16 and over in NSW have received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, while more than 70 per cent of people eligible for their third dose have received it. With such high vaccination coverage in the community, a high proportion of people admitted to hospital or intensive care unit (ICU) with COVID-19 are now vaccinated with two or three doses.

 

However, people who are not vaccinated remain more likely to suffer severe COVID-19. Note that some people with COVID-19 who are admitted to hospital or ICU are admitted for conditions unrelated to their COVID-19 infection, and these admissions will not be prevented by vaccination."

 

There have been numerous reports and studies throughout the pandemic that have showed the COVID death rates of the unvaccinated have been multiple times higher than the COVID death rates of the vaccinated.

 

For example, from Feb. 2023 per the U.S. CDC:

 

 

The chart you posted above does nothing to change that, since it isn't comparing the COVID death rates of a vaccinated population group vs an unvaccinated population group.