Rejoice and get ready to grab a beer to finish off this week, because epidemiologists say that the Omicron wave in NSW and Victoria has peaked, and we’ve been waiting for this very moment.
Professor Adrian Esterman, an epidemiologist at the University of South Australia, told Guardian that the variant wave had “absolutely certainly” peaked in NSW and Vic.
The Reff — the effective reproduction number measuring how many other people a COVID-infected person will infect on average — had dropped to below one in both states, Esterman informed.
“We know that the peak has been reached when the Reff gets below 1,” he said.
Esterman calculated the Reff to be 0.83 in NSW and 0.8 in Victoria.
“You can’t really interpret the daily cases very well because of huge fluctuations and large numbers of apid antigen tests coming through on a given day but being being distributed over previous days,” Esterman said. “The Reff is still reasonably stable despite the daily fluctuation in case numbers.”
Infectious disease modellers at Monash University said NSW has likely peaked bit Victoria was just levelling off, and it could be another week before experts could be absolutely certain that the worst was behind us.
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The number of people that are in hospital due to COVID in NSW decreased yesterday for the first time since December 18.
NSW COVID-19 update – Friday 21 January 2022
In the 24-hour reporting period to 8pm last night:
– 95.3% of people aged 16+ have had one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine
– 93.9% of people aged 16+ have had two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine pic.twitter.com/WLGJ9BZy5e— NSW Health (@NSWHealth) January 20, 2022
We thank everyone who got vaccinated and tested yesterday.
Our thoughts are with those in hospital, and the families of people who have lost their lives.
More data soon: https://t.co/OCCFTAcOZP#COVID19Vic #COVID19VicData pic.twitter.com/f9lgjv1yz2
— Victorian Department of Health (@VicGovDH) January 20, 2022
NSW health officials previously predicted that this week the hospital numbers would begin to plateau.
Victorian Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said that while the state’s case numbers were close to a peak, hospitalisation numbers aren’t at that stage yet.
Case numbers in both states have begun to show a declining trend since NSW’s peak on January 12 and Victoria’s on January 7 — both of these peaks were exacerbated by the rapid antigen test recording.
There is usually a seven to 14 day delay between case numbers and hospitalisations as people’s symptoms begin to worsen, so the worst is not yet behind us in terms of the hospitalisation of COVID-positive patients.
Experts are suggesting that the outbreak can still get worse in other parks of Australia. For example, lower vaccination rates in the Northern Territory means that it can still see a drastic Omicron wave.
For more on this topic, follow the Health & Wellness Observer.
