The Victorian government has a lot of interesting and useful information but unfortunately most of the time we don't have access to that information. However, sometimes some of that information gets published and if we're lucky we got to read it. The aim of this post is to collect what I feel to be useful titbits of information.
"According to the Victorian government, 45 per cent of all household primary close contacts test positive even when fully vaccinated"
Covid-19 Victoria: Isolation for fully vaccinated close contacts reduced to 7 days | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site
"Within yesterday’s cases, there are 1245 newly impacted households which previously did not have COVID-19 present." - There were 2,297 cases.
Department of Health and Human Services Victoria | Coronavirus update for Victoria - 14 October 2021 (dhhs.vic.gov.au)
"almost 90 per cent of people infected with the Delta variant turn positive by day seven"
Covid-19 Victoria: Isolation for fully vaccinated close contacts reduced to 7 days | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site
For me this information is very useful as it helps me to get an idea of the level of COVID-19 around me and thus the risk of exposure. From the above we can estimate:
1. Around half the cases are in new households.
2. Around half the cases will occur within a household when someone is already infected.
3. We know those who are a household where someone's already infected they could perhaps already be quarantine so present little risk to the community.
4. The new case for a household may have only been in the community for a short period of time whilst infected.
5. What is missing but may be interesting to know is how many of the new infections for a new household is a direct contact or an existing infected person. The reason is if they're a direct contact they may have already been in quarantine when they test positive so also a lower risk to the community.
By using the Victorian government's COVID-19 data by postcode I collate the data so I can see how the data is changing over the last seven days (Victoria COVID-19 Cases By Postcode (onlineconnections.com.au).
Using the information about I can make rather loose assumptions that for each household where there's a new case there will be an additional case that occurs. Thus I can halve the number of cases in an area as they'll be in the same household. In addition, once the first person is found to be infected, that person plus the entire household will need to be in quarantine. Thus the second infected person (or half the cases) may generally not be a risk to the community.
By shopping, socialising and exercising in areas with low numbers of COVID-19 infections I am hopeful I can reduce my level of risk when I'm not at home. At this point in time I work from home and no longer go out to clients. I only go out a couple of times a week to shop, socialise or exercise so my movements and contact with others is fairly limited so hopefully my risk is limited.
However I do accept the risk will increase as the Victorian government has failed to suppress COVID-19 in the community, so will now open up the community on the basis that being vaccinated will reduce the risk of severe infection by a factor of 2-5 for Astrazenica and 5-10 for Pfizer and this shouldn't overwhelm our health system.
Living Evidence - COVID-19 vaccines | Agency for Clinical Innovation (nsw.gov.au)
As I find more useful titbits I hope to add them to this post.
Kelvin
Update: 19 October 2021
The Victorian government has stopped publishing tier 2 sites and in fact even before doing this did not include sites people had told me about. In essence leaving us blind as to the level of exposure in our community. Since shopping is something we all do most weeks, if not more often, it's good to see Coles and Woolworths still publishing COVID-19 exposure sites for customers.
COVID-19 store updates and latest news | Woolworths Group COVIDSafe
Aldi also have a page which looks to be up to date, but in the past I've found their page not always as good as it could be. Hopefully they've improved since last year. To be fair to Aldi, every recent exposure site I could find in the media is listed on the page. Aldi's layout is different as cases are listed together for each site. What is also good from a risk point of view is each shop generally has very few cases.
Customer Notices: COVID-19 Cases - ALDI Australia
"Covid-19 has a mortality rate of 1.06 per cent in Australia"
I do think it's poor that Greg Hunt didn't quantify the mortality rate for double vaccinated.
Greg Hunt reveals the likelihood of catching Covid-19 if you’re fully vaccinated | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site
Figures from the UK give us a better idea of the mortality rate for those double vaccinated. Out of 51,281 deaths during the period given there were 256 breakthrough deaths. Breakthrough deaths are those who had been double vaccinated and infected 14 days after second dose of vaccine. That's roughly 1 in 200. There were 2,159,287 cases during the nominated period which is a death rate of 2.37% overall and 0.012% for double vaccinated. It should also be kept in mind double vaccination rates went from less than 1% on the 2nd of January to 49.7% on the 2nd of July. Using a very rough average of 25% of the UK population double vaccinated this could possibly mean numbers could increase by a factor of 4 if the UK population was fully vaccinated. As figures are updated a better picture of the mortality rate for double vaccinated will become more apparent.
Deaths involving COVID-19 by vaccination status, England - Office for National Statistics
Cases in the UK | Coronavirus in the UK (data.gov.uk)
Coronavirus (COVID-19) Vaccinations - Statistics and Research - Our World in Data
Update: 14/11/2021
I was thinking about hospitalisation rates for those who get infected and thought the following was an interesting summary showing relative likelihood of being hospitalised based on age.
Risk for COVID-19 Infection, Hospitalization, and Death By Age Group | CDC
Update: 23/11/2021
Nick Coates, the earlier face of COVID-19, advises against vaccine mandates for under 12s.
Nick Coatsworth advises against Covid vaccine mandates for under 12s | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site
Update: 23/11/2021
Peak viral loads for vaccinated and unvaccinated similar but faster decline for vaccinated.
Community transmission and viral load kinetics of the SARS-CoV-2 delta (B.1.617.2) variant in vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals in the UK: a prospective, longitudinal, cohort study - The Lancet Infectious Diseases
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