In Victoria, if you are over the age of 85, you are around three times more likely than the average person to have tested positive for Covid19. I’ve been following the Royal Commission into Aged Care quite closely as it examines some quite horrendous stories about the experience of manyContinue Reading
How effective have Victoria’s lockdowns been? The research shows that they’ve meant a reduction of between 9,000 and 37,000 Covid19 cases up to 31 July, so the lockdowns have probably saved between 100 and 500 lives that would have been lost without them. And that’s just so far. One veryContinue Reading
Can contact tracing reduce or remove the need for physical distancing? Contact tracing, when done quickly and effectively, removes some transmission, but not all of it. And the more cases there are, particularly in an environment without much physical distancing, the more the chances of a superspreader that will causeContinue Reading
The ABS has released Australian population mortality statistics up to 28 April. While there were a few more extra Covid19 deaths than counted in late March and early April, since then death rates in the population as a whole are largely lower than in previous years. The graph below showsContinue Reading
Are we getting better at treating Covid19? At least in the UK, yes. Actuaries in the UK (bulletin 50 in the link) have analysed the data there and found a halving of the death rate for those admitted to hospital with Covid19. Their key result is in this graph (1).Continue Reading
While Australia’s case numbers are getting worse, increasingly public health commentators are asking whether we should aim for elimination of the virus when we get case numbers back under control, rather than opening up when numbers are low as we did last time. It is helpful to think of thisContinue Reading
With the benefit of hindsight, I’ve looked at Victoria’s community transmission of Covid19 in the last six weeks. If this happened in NSW, how should we know when to take action earlier? And if so what action should we take? If we could rerun history, maybe a testing blitz aContinue Reading
In many countries, population mortality statistics have revealed a much worse Covid 19 epidemic than is being shown by the case and official death statistics. Australian statistics have not been released for 2020 until this week (with data up to the end of March). They suggest that it is possibleContinue Reading
In the USA, cases are increasing again, but deaths from COVID19 are still falling from the April peak. The US is now identifying more mild cases, but the recent increase in cases is almost certain to lead to more deaths per day in a the next few weeks. It’s beenContinue Reading
This week, I’ve been looking for evidence that the Australian justice system is racist against Aboriginal people. Given Indigenous people are locked up at 11 times the rate of non Indigenous people, racism seems likely to be at least some of the reason. Where statistics exist (and I’ve found some),Continue Reading