The first year of COVID-19 in Australia: direct and indirect health effects

aihw.gov.au/reports/burden…
A reminder of how vaccine development has been speeding up - but scicne and medicine did especially amazingly for this pandemic. A new benchmark?
A nice reminder that while most of COVID-19 is mild and moderate, a sizable portion is not at all - from hospitals through to death.
Polio was a rare outcome from poliovirus infection - but it wasn't something anyone wanted.
Vaccines work in these severe outcomes spaces.
And that severity is of course best viewed been broken down by age group.
But infection isn't just about "it's all good" vs "DEAAATH". Hospitalisations and ICU admissions clearly *can be* spread much more obviously across age groups. And remember that small percentages (literally, 'per 100s') get bigger quickly when overall case numbers shoot up.
I like the clarity of this pathway to determining Years Lived with Disability (YLD) and Years of Life Lost (YLL).
There were a *lot* of YLL - even in Australia which manage that brilliantly. Especially among males.
These next few are for the "why are your citizens so willing to do what they're told" krew.
(Answer of course is "Why are *yours* not?". Why so willing to run towards death and disease instead of science-led, short-term pain for longer-term gain"?
Case rates-🖐NZ, SK, SG, JP🖐
Death rates 🖐NZ, SK, SG, JP🖐
Excess deaths (under the 5-year average in Australia and New Zealand (I'm looking at you and your multisystem event triggering capacity influenza)
What If...
...Australia saw the same case rates as some other countries...?
Why would we want to have been like anyone sles (except New Zealand, but that's a daily question really)
......Australia saw the same death rates as some other countries...?
What if, indeed.
Australia saw a decrease in all-cause deaths per 100,000 in 2020 (this may look different in 2021 of course)
A drop in death due to (?with) most of these selected diseases in Australia last year.
Massive drop in influenza and pneumonia deaths compared to the previous 5-years
But I don't mean to trivialise the impact of a pandemic and the responses to it. Mental Health service use trended upwards throughout 2020...
Especially wherever the pandemic was most directly impacted, and especially among the young...

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More from @MackayIM

7 Sep
In Australia we are talking about lifting some restrictions once 70% of the eligible population is fully vaccinated ("double-dosed"); more will lift at 80%.
It's important to be fully aware that "70% of" anything often doesn't look like this - one homogenous group all at the same level.
Here the shape might be Australia, or all people, or one jurisdiction (e.g. a State, territory, building) or an age band (e.g. 16-25 year olds).
Overall, these two groups could, as an average of both ("=all of Australia"?), be considered vaccinated to a level of 70%.
And yet one group hasn't even cracked 70% fully vaccinated.
Read 5 tweets
28 Aug
In Victoria's (Aus) Wave 2 in 2020, there was a lag to hospitalisations (blue) following the initial wave of detections (orange). A small portion of those went to ICU and some died (black line). But in the current New South Wale's Wave 2...
...the daily number of COVID-19 cases hospitalised doesn't show that lag.
Is this due to a different policy for faster admission of cases, or home hospitalisation from the outset, or something else in NSW compared to VIC?

NSW sure got the testing amped up early on (green line)
I have no idea if there's a well-known & simple reason for this.

Chime in if you know it.

Data copied from covidlive.com.au
Read 7 tweets
11 Aug
This animal reservoir thing is not a factor in SARS-CoV-2 - the animal providing the virus opportunities, is us.
RVs, RSV - they don't have animal reservoirs. *We* are their reservoirs. So it seems like this person has no understanding of endemic respiratory viruses.
Summer respiratory viruses? Um. Summer flu? Every year. Enteroviruses which are in fact also spread by a respiratory route? Did this person miss the global bounce back of RSV as the world came out of Wave 1 COVID-19 lockdowns? That's traditionally not a summer virus.
Read 6 tweets
8 Aug
What would I do? Okay. Keeping in mind I'm not in the room, not an Epi and I don't run this stuff. So a big pinch of salt.
But to answer this question for people angry at me for negatively pointing out that NSW is putting the rest of Australia at risk..
..because they started too slow (my key point, which doesn't help now, I know).
I'd reset.
I'd look at what the most stringent of the "Lockdown" rollouts from anywhere in NZ and Aus (planned or enacted) is, add anything more that can be added, ensure food and money can get to..
..those who will suffer most, and roll that out across all of NSW at once, all the same. And lots of different Comms. There is more that can be added if today's Penrith additions are a guide. So do that. Set a new benchmark. And this has to be done before any more of those..
Read 10 tweets
7 Aug
🦠13 new linked cases in QLD
🦠total now at 102
🦠40,835 tests in past 24h
🦠will see household (HH) cases continue - so long as they are not one the community, this is good
🦠10,091 heroes in quarantine right now -
🦠Supermarket deliveries seeing high demand for groceries - their staff are also in quarantine;2-3d delays. Plan ahead. Use family and friends. Uber Eats partnering with IGA
🦠Shop alone - don't all go together
🦠CHO wants more testing Cairns
🦠Premier out of quarantine tomorrow after Japan Olympic trip (thx Dr Miles for holding the fort)
🦠
Read 8 tweets
6 Aug
Putting too many eggs in the vaccination basket in order to prevent a local *transmission* has issues.
One is, what happens when, like the US, people stop getting vaccinated at the initial most enthusiastic initial rates?
cdc.gov/coronavirus/20…
What happens is massive exponential rise in cases and hospitalisations in that location because of too few/weak NPIs in place due to the earlier narratives which paraphrase as "we can live with it".
Another issue for interrupting transmission is it takes time to build up full immunity-even with shortened dosing intervals between doses. Yes, one dose makes a difference & is better than none. Get vaccinated if you can & if supply allows it & your GP has addressed your concerns
Read 7 tweets

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