The NSW Health epi report for the week ending 5 November was released today.
I feel like I follow NSW reasonably closely, but there were a few surprises in here for me. #Covid19Aus#Covid19NSW
You can find the full report here... health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/cov…
Surprise #1: Cases were up 45% this week, with 14,000 cases reported.
While this is still much lower than earlier in the year, it is a lot more cases than the weekly update suggested (the last weekly update was to 3 Nov, had 12,500 cases reported, up 24% on the previous week).
Surprise #2: The number of PCR tests conducted was up a bit (10%), but positivity increased A LOT to 14%. Not good.
By age band, there was a large increase in the 60+ age group. The group that is more likely to test and more likely to report it.
All of that together does not bode well for tomorrow's weekly update.
The number of people in hospital was largely unchanged (+1%)
But hospital admissions were up by about 30% (allowing for late reported admissions, shown as the "unknown" age group in the graph).
The increase was mainly in the 60-79 age group.
There were 24 deaths.
Note there was a change in the way deaths are counted, starting last week. NSW Health only counts deaths once a death certificate is lodged with Births, Deaths, Marriages.
Surprise #3: the big growth in variants of concern was in BA.2.75, specifically the BR.2 sub-lineage. Not BQ.1.1. of XBB.
Not sure if @Mike_Honey_ has anything to add here?
Ends/
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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.
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.
"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.
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!
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).
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.
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.
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.