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Karen Cutter Profile picture
@KarenCutter4
Oct 20, 2022 • 14 tweets • 4 min read • Read on X
Scrolly
The NSW Health epi report for the week ending 15 October is now out.
#COVID19Aus #COVID19NSW
You can find the full report here...
health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/cov…
Total cases were up slightly (+1%) this week. Image
By age band, however, cases were up 10% in the 60+ age band Image
The number of people in hospital fell by 3%, much less than the 7-15% falls we've seen in the last 8 weeks Image
Numbers admitted to hospital were about the same as last week. And these numbers confuse me. We've had less than 400 people admitted each week for the last 5 weeks, but numbers in hospital are still close to 1,000. So either... Image
... people are staying in hospital a lot longer than they used to. Or maybe it has something to do with hospital acquired Covid (i.e. not counted in the admissions, but counted as in hospital with covid)? Pure speculation on my part.
30 deaths this week Image
About half the deaths were aged care residents Image
I'm giving up on trying to understand what is happening with the variants! Suffice to say they did a lot of sequencing this week and have found small numbers of both XBB (driving Singapore's wave) and BQ.1.1 (problematic in Europe).
ends/ Image
@LettersfromTim @DavidJoffe64 @GourlaySyd My experience of the pandemic is that whenever people accuse the government of playing with the numbers, it is because there is either a misunderstanding of the statistics, the definitions are unclear, or there has been an unintentional mistake
@edjegasothy @MichaelSFuhrer And there may be other differences too
@bobepidemiology @MichaelSFuhrer @edjegasothy …in more detail compared with what they publish.

As a parallel, in workers comp each state has different rules about how long you can stay on benefits and different processes for managing claimants. So you can’t directly compare success (or otherwise) of return to work measures
@bobepidemiology @MichaelSFuhrer @edjegasothy But the states all work together to try to report a consistent measure. It’s tricky, and not entirely successful, but comes done way too try to improve comparability.

I can see the same approach working with a national CDC
@darkturkey27 @MichaelSFuhrer @edjegasothy See this graph heading - "admitted to hospital within 14 days of diagnosis". Prior to Feb, they used "admitted .. within 28 days of diagnosis". Image

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More from @KarenCutter4

Karen Cutter Profile picture
Jul 28
The Mortality Working Group has today published our Research Paper covering excess mortality in 2020-2023.
actuaries.asn.au/public-policy-…
It is a massive paper (100+ pages), so I'm not going to cover off all of it!
This thread gives a taster of what is included in the paper, and is aimed at those who may want to delve further into the nitty-gritty.
There are four main sections of our paper (plus an into in section 1).
Section 2 cover excess mortality for Australia. This formally documents the excess mortality blogs we published throughout 2023. For those who have been following me, the numbers will look familiar.
Read 14 tweets
Karen Cutter Profile picture
Jul 11
The Mortality Working Group of the Actuaries Institute has released their latest estimate of excess mortality for Q1 2024.
TLDR: excess mortality is 1%, noting this is measured against the new baseline.
actuaries.digital/2024/07/10/exc…
Our new baseline measures 2024 mortality against 2023 (after allowing for some mortality improvement), and includes and allowance for COVID-19 deaths.
Deaths from all causes have been within the 95% confidence interval in each of the first thirteen weeks of 2024, although they have been towards the top of that range for three of the last four weeks of March. Image
Read 6 tweets
Karen Cutter Profile picture
Apr 12
Some fact checking on this article.
TLDR: Australia has not reached a 'significant' COVID milestone
A short thread/
"Australia appears to have had at least a week where no COVID-associated deaths were recorded for the first time in more than two years."
This is simply not true. The statement is based on this Fed Health graph. Image
Yes, it does show a 7-day average of zero deaths for the most recent data points. But this ignores the fact that the graph is compiled using date of death, and it is almost impossible for someone to die, have their death registered, and included in the Fed data within a week! Image
Read 11 tweets
Karen Cutter Profile picture
Apr 5
The Mortality Working Group of the Actuaries Institute has released our estimate of excess mortality for the full year 2023.
TLDR: Excess mortality for 2023 is 5% (95% CI: 3%-7%) or +8,400 deaths.
A thread/
actuaries.digital/2024/04/05/exc…
Note that our expected number of deaths (baseline) is our expectation had the pandemic not happened.
The baseline allows for changes in the age and size composition of the population over time, plus allows for pre-pandemic mortality trend to continue.
We finished the year with deaths being much higher than expected for each of the four weeks in December (as they were in November). Image
Read 15 tweets
Karen Cutter Profile picture
Mar 27
Australian deaths counts: surveillance vs death certificates.
For some time now I have been quizzically looking at the death surveillance reporting, thinking the numbers looked too low.
A thread/
This is because of the relationship between hospitalisations and deaths.
Normally deaths track hospital admissions quite closely, but with a little bit of a lag. But for Dec23 and Jan24, this relationship changed - deaths are lower than expected based on hospitalisations. Image
A few theories were floating around about why (eg. JN.1 less severe), but it also didnt make sense to me from looking at the Vic death reporting, and knowing the Vic wave was a bit earlier than the rest of Aust. Things just werent stacking up nicely.
Read 8 tweets
Karen Cutter Profile picture
Mar 1
The Mortality Working Group* of the Actuaries Institute has estimated Australian excess mortality to 30 November 2023.

A thread/

* re-branded as we plan to look at more than just Covid
Total excess mortality for the first 11 months of 2023 is estimated at 5% (95% confidence interval: 3% to 7%).
This is about 7,400 more deaths than expected if the pandemic had not happened.
This compares to excess mortality for 2022 of 11%.
With only one month of data still to be reported for 2023, we expect that excess mortality for the full year 2023 will be about half the level of 2022.
Read 11 tweets

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