NSW has seen the highest level of COVID in a year with two variants being behind the bulk of cases, as the health department urges those infected with the virus to stay home.

Key points:

  • NSW has recorded a significant rise in COVID infections
  • Two variants are responsible for most cases in the state
  • Those with the virus are urged to stay home or wear a mask outside
  •  zero_gravitas   ( @zero_gravitas@aussie.zone ) OPEnglish
    1•9 months ago

    There’s no evidence JN.1 poses a greater health risk than other COVID-19 variants.

    In NSW there is about 30% higher hospital admissions compared to previous wave.

    Yeah, but that could be due to a greater number of cases, rather than the severity of illness. Very difficult to tell now, because we no longer have reliable figures for case numbers to be able to determine whether there’s a higher rate of hospitalisation per case.

    However it seems to have peaked due to Xmas (but not NYE, I suppose because that is for younger people).

    See figure 1 https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/covid-19/Documents/respiratory-surveillance-20240106.pdf

    Hospitalisations can also trail infections by 2 weeks, and that data only includes up to the 7th of Jan, so I don’t think we can be confident about the effect of NYE yet.

    •  sqgl   ( @sqgl@beehaw.org ) 
      2•9 months ago

      The absolute number of hospitalisations is all I am really concerned about.

      don’t think we can be confident about the effect of NYE yet.

      Indeed but the spike did drop. NYE is more outdoors and younger. Could be lax data collection though. We will see.

      •  zero_gravitas   ( @zero_gravitas@aussie.zone ) OPEnglish
        2•9 months ago

        The absolute number of hospitalisations is all I am really concerned about.

        Ah, right, I had immediately converted their phrasing of “a greater health risk” to mean ‘greater severity of illness’ (on the TV reports they’d been saying that directly). Now I see where you were coming from, that it’s a greater health risk to the public as a whole👍