13 August 2022

Man in his 20s dies with COVID-19 as ACT records 322 new cases

| Lottie Twyford
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outside view of Canberra hospital emergency department

The COVID-19 seven-day rolling mean has now dropped to its lowest rate since late February this year. Photo: File.

The Territory has recorded 322 new COVID-19 infections in the 24 hours to 8 pm yesterday and there are now 141 people in Canberra’s hospitals with the virus. ACT Health has been notified of the death of a man in his 20s with the virus.

Of those in hospital, 3 are in intensive care and 2 require ventilation.

It comes as ACT Health confirms that COVID-19 case numbers have now decreased for the fourth week in a row, with the rolling mean hitting its lowest point since February.

Yesterday, the ACT reported 474 infections and there were 135 COVID-patients in hospital.

There are now 2,749 active infections and since the pandemic began, 197,876 cases of COVID-19 have been locally recorded.

Vaccination updates are now provided weekly on Fridays by ACT Health.

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The directorate’s latest epidemiological report – which covers the week ending Sunday, 7 August – showed COVID-19 cases are continuing to decline.

There were 4420 new cases reported compared to 5805 cases in the previous week.

Of note is the fact that the rolling mean has decreased to 500 to 700 cases a day compared to 700 to 900 in the previous week.

This is the lowest it has sat since late February this year.

A rolling mean is the average of the rate for that day and the previous six days.

A rolling mean provides an average line over time and smooths out predictable peaks and troughs (such as the fact that case numbers usually decrease around weekends as there is less testing demand).

Authorities have asserted their confidence that this current wave of the pandemic has now peaked in the Territory.

This is despite the fact ACT Chief Health Officer Dr Kerryn Coleman warned in mid-July infections could hit as high as between 2000 to 3000 a day. Health has been unable to release this modelling publicly.

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Total PCR test numbers have decreased again this reporting period with a total of 14,248 tests throughout the week. This compares to 16,610 tests in the previous week.

Based on PCR tests only, the test positivity seven-day rolling mean has decreased again this reporting period, to an average of 18 per cent compared to 20 per cent in the previous week. This is the lowest test-positivity seven-day rolling mean which has been reported in the ACT since April 2022.

Hospitalisations peaked in mid-July and have been decreasing since. However, ACT hospitals continue to care for a large number of patients affected by COVID-19. Despite this. ACT Health says COVID-19 ICU admissions remain low.

Since 1 January 2022, approximately 53 per cent of all cases admitted to the ICU had received fewer than three doses of vaccine at the time of their admission and 17 per cent of cases were unvaccinated at the time of their admission.

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Interstate, NSW has reported 35 deaths overnight and 8,217 new cases of COVID-19.

Victoria has reported 22 deaths overnight and 4,300 new cases of COVID-19.

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I don’t know why we keep repeating the same arguments week after week about the publication of covid deaths, covid is real and here to stay we just have to deal with it, listing if people have been immunised makes no difference, being immunised only reduces the chance of serious infection or hospitalisation not death. If people have an underlying health problem and die with covid, it’s covid that has finished them off, not their original health concern, we can live a long and healthy life in most cases with a lot of our medical problems. My next door neighbour needs his hip replacement ‘replaced’ as the cobalt in the mechanism is making him sick but he can’t get a bed because the hospital is overloaded with covid patients, all we need to do is wear masks in shops and wash our hands when we go to the toilet at the club and we could reduce the numbers greatly.

Why does this news provider feel the need to continually report on covid related deaths.
Covid still sits around number 40 in terms of cause of death, there are 39 other factors that we could pay greater awareness toward, yet the scaremongering for Covid rolls on.
We are all sheep!

The reason deaths are reported is that it provides a “wake-up” call to those of us who mock the risk that Covid is.

Yes, Omicron is less “deadly”, but being more infectious, it’s impact has been more drastic. Over the last 12 mths, Australia has had more than 10,000 Covid deaths.

One question that might be relevant is knowing their vaccination status. Pretty much everyone got 2 vaccinations, but the take-up of the 1st and 2nd Booster hasn’t been so good and as the immunity wanes, the risk of infection increases.

Scaremongering? I wouldn’t call it that, but I would suggest that medical advice is kind of important.

Will Newby wrote: “Covid still sits around number 40 in terms of cause of death”

Source please?

I do not find support for your claim in 2022 data, where it ranks around 4th, give or take one (civil statistical data lags health-advised numbers so they differ).

CaptainSpiff1:50 pm 14 Aug 22

Those 10,000 “Covid deaths” – for how many of them do you think Covid was the cause of death?

ABS Causes of death 2022

Kenbehrens, why do people need a wake up call when COVID is most likely not the cause of death? People are dying WITH COVID. Where people need a wake up call is their nonchalant approach to health. 60% of the population is obese and that is what is killing them. Need to bring in a sugar tax and increase the Medicare levy for those over a certain BMI. Look at countries in Africa and India which have far lower vaccine coverage but lower rates of obesity and you will see COVID is little more than a nuisance for them. Vaccine status barely matters, COVID is a fist world disease!

Will Newby, you find yourself unable to respond clearly because you are using 2020 reference data published 6 April 2022. It was 38th in 2022 so even from a couple of years ago, before we had much Covid, saying “there are 39 other [more important] factors” is an obvious falsehood, fudging data to your failed agenda.

I see it ranking 5th in January-April data 2022, just 8% off respiratory diseases in 4th. Source: ABS Provisional Mortality Statistics Jan-Apr 2022 published 29 July 2022.

Your attempted point is wholly wrong.

“Look at countries in Africa and India which have far lower vaccine coverage but lower rates of obesity and you will see COVID is little more than a nuisance for them “

Sam Oak, garbage.

Death rates from Covid-19:
South Africa: 2.5%
Bangladesh: 1.5%
India: 1.2%
Australia: 0.13%

Take it as an example of vaccine effectiveness, given we have higher coverage than Africa and India.

I allow that there may be case under-reporting which may reduce the proportions a bit, but not by factors of ten to twenty times. It would also be associated with death cause under-reporting.

Erratum
“38th in 2022 ” should read “38th in 2020” based on the ABS 6 April publication. It is, as stated, 5th in 2022 based on the ABS 29 July publication..

Phydux your death rates are flawed, you need to divide by the population of each country as at this point every single person has been exposed to COVID. So for India 527k have died out of a 1.4billion population which is a fatality rate of 0.03%…
But I can see why your want to represent the statistics the way you did in order to make the numbers look scarier than reality. Do you really think 1.2% of Indians died which implies only 44.3mil or 3% of the population has been exposed to the virus? LOL

S Oak, I already covered the issue of under-reporting in my 3:56 pm post, so it appears you have had trouble reading and understanding that. Has everyone who has had COVID in such countries been diagnosed with COVID, and deaths reported as from COVID? Has “every single person” had it? You simply have no evidence that COVID-19 is “a fist [sic] world disease” although you are more than happy to make some up, as usual.

It seems that when caught out by factual information on your unsupported sweeping claim you simply add another unsupported sweeping claim by which you hope to hide your problems under some magical carpet. The world does not work as you seem to wish it.

Surely not even Sam Oak believes the tosh he is sprouting?

Excess mortality rates in the last few years have been significantly higher in the countries and areas that Sam Oak thinks Covid is little more than a “nuisance”, than other areas across the globe.

Hilarious that Sam Oak accuses others of using manipulated statistics whilst simultaneously attempting to utilise data from areas where testing rates are very low and the ability of their health systems to adequately treat the amount of patients and accurately report true causes of death are also low.

Can’t die of Covid if you never get tested for it, hey Sam.

hank1908 and CaptainSpiff, I take it that neither of you is a doctor let alone an epidemiologist, nor experienced in data classification, analysis, or causal modelling.

Assume you were asked how an aeroplane flies when it does not flap its wings. You reply with a brief explanation of aerofoils with reference to publicly available information on aerodynamics.
Then, you are asked the same question again by the same person. What to do?

It is fine not to know stuff and to enquire. However, the basis and standards for death reporting have been provided to you previously, and are in any case publicly available. I must infer that you do not understand them, or do not wish to thanks to some prior anti-state belief. Either way, it does not matter. Your comments become immaterial.

CaptainSpiff10:20 pm 13 Aug 22

@phydeaux Don’t you think it would be relevant to know if the 20-something referenced in the article, died of Covid, or, as is much more likely, had some other major health problem?

Surely even you would be interested in the answer?

Or do you find the endless reels of Covid stats more interesting – how many in hospital, how many in ICU, how many with ventilation, how many infections, how many active infections, how many cumulative infections, daily case rolling means, PCR tests performed, test positivity rolling means, etc etc. It’s like a religious chant.

“Don’t you think it would be relevant to know if the 20-something referenced in the article, died of Covid, or, as is much more likely, had some other major health problem?”

CaptainSpiff, it would be much more helpful if you understood mortality statistics and their sensible purposes. I reiterate that your question is essentially meaningless at this point.

It may help to remember that by virtue of being alive, you will die. Therefore it makes more sense to talk about things which are reasonably known to change your life expectancy. If you have a reduced life expectancy from Disease A, then acquire Disease B and die, what killed you? What if the disease sequence were reversed? Having problem A does not make problem B irrelevant, and vice versa, so your “some other major health problem” is the thing that is meaningless.

From an epidemiological perspective, all co-morbidities are grist for the mill of risk assessment, so all known ones are recorded on the death certificate for later analysis. That is what is important. There are national and international standards on this and Australian reporting conforms with it. If we find that a particular illness is frequently engaged then that one is higher risk, a leading cause of death. Analysis does not blame-shift.

CaptainSpiff9:01 pm 14 Aug 22

My goodness. Is there supposed to be a point hidden in all that verbiage?

I am confident, CaptainSpiff, that many here would have understood my point very well. Given that you suggest you did not, here is a short and simple version: death records are formal documents kept to required standards, significantly to facilitate research on health risks and responses. That is, to help to protect people like you.

I wonder what you think would happen if you knew a direct answer on underlying death causes compared with “WITH” morbidities? Will you then give an opinion that will cause epidemiologists in research institutes, ATAGI, AIHW, academia, to fall about in amazement at your acumen? Do you really think they are stupid, that you know more?

A clue may be found in the fact that I, who have no particular interest in your supposed question, know (and have for a while) the direct answer to it, while you and some others who repeatedly claim vital interest have never apparently discovered the publicly available information on a well known government web site. As usual, your (plural) research is abysmal.

Covid was the underlying cause of death in 89.8% of Covid cases to 30 April 2022. Another morbidity (e.g. cancer) was the underlying cause of death in the other 10.2% of total cases where Covid-19 was found.
So in nine of ten cases, Covid-19 was the underlying cause of death in someone who otherwise would have lived longer. Time to write to those aforementioned experts with your hot take on the data, CaptainSpiff. There is reason for the invention of rubbish bins.

Peter Driscoll and hank1908, why are you asking about vaccination status? What view are you seeking to test?

Here is a hypothetical. I have invented data for the purpose.
Assume 95% of the population is appropriately vaccinated, 5% not at all. We then count that 95% of people who have died were vaccinated, 5% not.
What is your conclusion from this information?

I offer fair warning that I expect you to give a wrong answer, based on the fact that if your answer were sound then you would not be asking now.

On the last data published in NSW, the proportions were different from my hypothetical by the way. I have simplified the question to favour the position I expect you to hold.

The conclusion from the example you provided is that the vaccines don’t work if deaths are in proportion to the vaccine status of the population.

Just like if 20% of the population had blue eyes and 20% of COVID deaths were people with blue eyes you can conclude having blue eyes doesn’t protect nor make you more vulnerable to COVID. You don’t need to be an epidemiologist or doctor to figure that one out. However you seem to think people need some sort of medical degree to interpret basic statistics?

Think you just outsmarted yourself and now look like a goose lol.

Thank you for making a try, S Oak, but that is not correct, nor is your analogy any different.

The correct conclusion is … you are unable to draw a conclusion at all. You lack information about population cohorts for vaccination and for deaths.

Actual data since vaccination commenced, and in the last NSW data published (there is none routinely published nationally) shows that the unvaccinated are far more likely to suffer severe illness and death. With the population now dominantly being vaccinated, the larger count of deaths is among the vaccinated, especially given that older people, more likely to die, are also among the most vaccinated. However, those counts do not alter the proportional facts that unvaccinated people of any age are more likely to suffer severe or critical illness, or death, than vaccinated. Any reputable source will show you this. Proportions are basic statistics. Children start to learn them around years 6-7 so no medical degree required.

To show you using your own analogy, what if the prior probability of death in the given time frame were 10% for blue-eyed and 90% for others? Now, we have an excess of blue-eyed deaths, double the expectation from the population. If statistically significant then it would deserve research. In the vaccination case, we already know the answer.
This is conditional probability, more like year 12 or tertiary but still not requiring a medical degree.

I have invented the particular numbers used to illustrate the difference between counting deaths, proportional deaths, and rates based on conditional (Bayesian) probability. The facts regarding death rate differences stand as I have described; vaccination reduces likelihood of severe or critical illness, or death.

Asking simply for “vaccination status” merely demonstrates a lack of comprehension of the questions.

My conclusion drawn from your original example with lack of further information provided is correct. You are embarrassing yourself trying to add silly little details after the fact in attempt to make yourself look clever. Your answer to what does 1+1=? would be to say its complicated, you’d need a phD in mathematics to understand it lol. You’ve been exposed as just as clueless as the rest of the left wing mob. Look at you talking about “aerofoils” pretending you are some genius on all things, it’s embarrassingly hilarious!

“To show you using your own analogy, what if the prior probability of death in the given time frame were 10% for blue-eyed and 90% for others? Now, we have an excess of blue-eyed deaths, double the expectation from the population. ” With my example where 20% of the population is blue-eyed, that is not an excess of blue-eyed deaths. That would mean they are under-represented in the mortality statistics. LOL You can’t embarrass yourself more if you tried!

S Oak wrote:
“My conclusion drawn from your original example with lack of further information provided is correct.”

I see you are catching up with my very point that you lacked essential information for consideration of vaccination and death data, rendering the simplistic question meaningless. This would have been bleedingly obvious to you if you knew anything about the nature of vaccination/death questions or analysis of same.

Now, you are claiming that you would have been right *if only* the problem had been as simplistic as you hoped, if there were no conditional probabilities involved (as there are in anything to do with lifetime morbidity).
That is OK because by saying you lacked sufficient information (albeit unable to see that beforehand yourself) conversely you are agreeing that a simplistic “were they vaccinated or not”, is ill-informed, inadequate to the case, meaningless. Thank you for your agreement.

Do keep up the attempts at insults though. Otherwise your posts would be quite short, though no more to the point.

S Oak wrote:
“My conclusion drawn from your original example with lack of further information provided is correct.”

I see you are catching up with my very point that you lacked essential information for consideration of vaccination and death data, rendering the simplistic question meaningless. This would have been obvious to you in the first place had you known anything about the nature of vaccination/death questions or analysis of same.

Now, you are claiming that you would have been right *if only* the problem had been as simplistic as you hoped, if there were no conditional probabilities involved (as there are in anything to do with lifetime morbidity).
That is OK because by saying you lacked sufficient information (albeit unable to see that beforehand yourself) conversely you are agreeing that a simplistic “were they vaccinated or not”, is ill-informed, inadequate to the case, meaningless. Thank you for your agreement.

Do keep up the attempts at insults though. Otherwise your posts would be quite short, though no more to the point.

instead of simply regurgitating Covid-19 statistics, ACT Health would better serve the ACT public by disclosing more meaningful stistics such as the vaccination status of patients whether or not patients in ICU (as well as mortalities) have/had any underlying medical problem.

Peter Driscoll1:47 pm 13 Aug 22

It’s all good that we are given the figures of people who have died because of COVID, but they are not telling us how many of these have been fully vaccinated.

CaptainSpiff4:44 pm 13 Aug 22

I would settle for just knowing their actual cause of death.

Christine Hamilton12:11 pm 15 Aug 22

Can I ask you what purpose that would serve ? To gather and release all this information is time consuming and really none of yours or anyone’s business.

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