Blog Day 662 - Monday 31 January 2022 - Day 93 of Covid Nearly Normal

Still hot and humid, this has been going on for nearly week now and I have had nearly enuff.

At nearly 12.00 midday it is 30 degrees outside with 61% humidity.  Last Friday we had 35 degrees and my little weather monitor was telling me that it was nearly 90% humidity.  That was before the thunderstorm, the hail, the torrential rain and the flooding.

Around 3.00pm on Friday afternoon, there was lots of thunderbolts and lightning, very, very frightening me!.

The hail was large lumps of ragged ice, not the nice smooth round hailstones that we usually get.  And then there was the flooding,  I have attached some photos below showing my street and the corner of my street and East Boundary Road.  I have a sump type drain in my driveway, which was working backwards and instead of taking water away it was delivering water.  Water was rising up out the drain and a great rate and then running down the drive to the street.

 To be fair we get a bit of flooding on this corner even in a heavy dew and the drains have been fixed and replaced a number of times to try and solve the problem, but as we can see it is not working.

I was going to try and summarise the vaccination status of Victorians in hospital due to covid and the vaccination status of those that have died due to the virus.  However, when I had a look at the Vic Health website I decided that it was too complicated to summarise so for your education and elucidation I have copied the Vic Health media release for 26 January holus bolus.  

In summary, if you are triple vaxxed you have a far lesser chance of ending up in hospital or ending up dead than the unvaccinated folk.

Vaccination status

Analysis of data on the vaccination status of people in hospital and ICU with COVID-19 shows unvaccinated people continue to make up a significant proportion of admissions despite making up only a fraction of the general population.

Yesterday, Victoria recorded 1089 people with COVID-19 in hospital and 113 active and cleared cases in ICU.

Of cases in hospital yesterday, unvaccinated people made up 22.8 per cent of those in hospital and 35.8 per cent of those in ICU, despite the fact the proportion of unvaccinated adults in the community is less than six per cent.

People who were vaccinated with a third dose of COVID-19 vaccine made up only six per cent of cases in both hospital and ICU, yet they make up almost 34 per cent of adults in the community.

Put simply – six per cent of the public are unvaccinated but make up a third of cases in ICU. A third of the public have their booster dose, but make up six per cent of cases in ICU.

The majority of people with COVID-19 who have died during the Delta and Omicron outbreaks were unvaccinated. 53 per cent of deaths were in unvaccinated people compared to 1.7 per cent who had received three doses of vaccine.

People protected with three doses made up 7 per cent of all confirmed cases diagnosed with COVID-19 over the last week, yet again, they make up more than a third of the general adult population.

This data clearly shows that a COVID-19 case is far more likely to be admitted to hospital or ICU if they are unvaccinated and far less likely to be admitted if they have received three doses of the vaccine.

Current table of vaccination rates as below;

Doses by Age Band First / Second

STATE	0+	0+	12+	12+
NSW	84.1%	79.3%	94.7%	93.1%
Victoria	84.0%	78.9%	94.0%	92.5%
Queensland	80.1%	74.6%	91.0%	88.2%
SA	83.5%	77.1%	93.0%	89.6%
ACT	91.6%	84.2%	>99%	>99%
Tasmania	88.8%	82.0%	98.5%	95.0%
NT	78.3%	71.1%	89.9%	85.9%
WA	82.9%	75.2%	94.8%	89.1%
Australia	84.2%	78.6%	94.9%	92.3%

Although there has been 7.7 million of the booster shots applied nationally there is some concern that younger folk are resisting having their third shot due to concerns about side effects in the younger group.  Maybe if they read the media release above they may change their minds.

Although the post weekend numbers are notoriously unreliable it would appear that the daily number of new infections in Victoria is continuing to decline.  In the previous 24 hours 10,053 Victorians reported positive with the virus, down from 10,600 the day before and 12,250 the day before that.  Lets hope that there isn't a spike with these numbers when post weekend counting catches up.

Hospital, ICU and ventilator numbers continue to decline in with 873 patients in Victorian hospitals with the virus, down from 988 three days ago, of these 102 are in ICU and 33 on ventilators.

Victorian death numbers are also down significantly but I expect that this is due to a lack of reporting over the weekend, particularly from the aged care sector.  In the last 24 hours there was 8 reported covid deaths in Victoria compared to 18 the day before and 31 the day before that.  

Anyway, despite the hiccoughs in the reporting over the weekend the Victorian figures all seem to moving in the right direction.

The NSW and Qld new infection and death figures are also showing various levels of decline, although the NSW new infection figures seem to have plateaued a bit at the daily 13,000 mark.

        Corona Virus Daily Stats – 31 January 2021 – Day 93 of Covid Nearly Normal

Date	Aus Infected	Aus Increase	Aus 1st Dose Vacc	Vic Infected	Vic Increase	NSW Increase	*Aus Active Infection	NSW Active Infection	Vic Active Infection	Aus 2nd Dose Vacc
01/01					7,442		158,782		24,161
02/01	460,657	29,947	93.5%	191,148	7,172	18,278	187,258	124,624	31,461	90.4%
03/01					8,577	20,794
04/01					14,020	23,131
05/01	601,169	53,557	93.6%	231,126	17,636	35,054	283,792	184,413	51,317	90.5%
06/01					21,743	34,960
07/01	762,458	78,160	93.8%	274,390	21,728	38,625	392,109	234,066	69,680	90.8%
08/01					51,356	45,098
09/01	972,455	94,662	93.9%	369,362	44,155	30,062	560,023	292,237	146,863	91.0%
10/01					35,843	20,293
11/01	1,115,610	65,243	93.9%	443,787	37,994	25,870	613,502	315,785	171,369	91.0%
12/01					40,127	34,759
13/01					37,169	92,264
14/01	1,524,727	122,685	94.7%	561,872	34,836	63,018	754,967	336,765	239,396	91.3%
15/01					26,817	48,768
16/01	1,726,116	85,824	95.6%	618,965	28,128	34,660	832,708	342,838	237,559	91.5%
17/01					22,429	29,504			245,040
18/01	1,853,775	51,320	95.8%	664,238	20,180	29,830	695,725	326,356	235,035	91.6%
19/01	1,954,977	79,132	94.4%	685,007	20,769	32,297			253,827	91.7%
20/01					21,966	30,825			99,976
21/01	2,085,483	60,232	94.5%	717,692	18,167	25,168	643,298	259,132	99,408	91.8%
22/01					16,016	20,148			68,675
23/01	2,196,870	48,743	94.6%	748,418	13,091	20,324	436,964	238,645	68,675	91.9%
24/01					11,695				186,073
25/01	2,285,286	44,441	94.6%	775,888	14,836	18,512	510,163	209,326	183,154	92.0%
26/01					13,507	21,030
27/01					13,755	17,316
28/01	2,465,065	36,646	94.7%	817,360	12,755	13,333	377,232	166,898	101,605	92.1%
29/01					12,250
30/01					10,589
31/01	2,528,855	31,582	94.9%	851,689	10,053	13,026	314,327	143,219	76,335	92.3%

Corona Virus Daily Stats Hospitalisation Etc – 31 January 2022 – Day 93 of Covid Nearly Normal
Date	Aus New Infection	Aus Hospital	Aus ICU	Aus Ventilate	Vic New Infection	Vic Hospital	Vic ICU	Vic Ventilate	AUS Daily Deaths	Vic Daily Deaths
01/01									14	9
02/01	29,947	1,950	145	48	7,172	472	52	22	4	3
03/01									7	3
04/01									5	2
05/01	53,557	2,904	196	56	17,636	591	53	20	19	11
06/01									12	6
07/01	78,160	2,900	274	65	21,728	644	106	24	20	6
08/01									26	9
09/01	94,662	3,304	298	73	44,155	752	104	23	21	4
10/01									22	2
11/01	65,243	3,721	334	86	37,994	861	117	27	24	13
12/01
13/01
14/01	122,685	4,396	367	114	34,836	976	112	30	50	18
15/01									55	24
16/01	85,824	4,753	392	120	28,128	1,114	122	35	40	8
17/01									31	6
18/01	51,320	5,048	416	128	20,180	1,152	127	43	58	22
19/01		5,298	425	130		1,173	125	42	67	18
20/01									55	10
21/01	60,232	5,134	419	132	18,167	1,096	121	34	93	25
22/01									74	20
23/01	48,743	5,024	387	138	13,091	1,002	120	44	58	14
24/01									51	10
25/01	44,441	5,402	392	139	14,836	1,057	119	45	76	29
26/01									105	54
27/01									72	15
28/01	36,646	5,020	394	139	12,755	988	114	40	92	39
29/01									95	31
30/01									85	18
31/01	31,852	4,962	369	118	10,053	873	102	33	38	8