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
In Australia, it is now overwhelmingly likely that community transmission has disappeared from WA, Tasmania, SA, Northern Territory. Queensland is coming close to that point, but Victoria and NSW are still the laggards based on cases on 13 June. In Australia, we are now in the fortunate position of havingContinue Reading
As Australians rally across the country to protest against mistreatment and deaths of Indigenous people, inspired by the week of protests following the death of George Floyd in the US, I’m comparing the statistics in the two countries. It saddens me to find, as I expected (I’ve blogged about this before), that Indigenous people are treated overall much worse by the police and prisons in Australia’s judicial system than black Americans are by theirs.Continue Reading