Victorians were told to expect these kinds of numbers, yet Wednesday’s 3767 new COVID-19 cases arrived as a jolt – a 35 per cent increase in a single day.
In what is normally one of the most relaxing and social times of the year, the state’s new case numbers are now soaring.
Victoria’s Health Minister Martin Foley said that while Victoria’s caseload modelling had accurately predicted a stark increase over the festive season, the rising numbers still registered as a “shock” to the public.
Melburnians wear face masks as they shop at the Queen Victoria Market.Credit:Getty Images
The Burnet Institute modelling, which underpinned Victoria’s road map to reopening, predicted the seven-day average of new cases would peak between 2778 and 6761 on December 15.
But by December 29, the week-long average has reached just 2313, significantly lower than what was initially forecast.
The number of Victorians in hospital with COVID-19 was predicted to peak in mid-December between 1950 and 4400, but on that date, hospitalisations hit 365. They have now climbed back up to 397, with 106 people in ICU.
Speaking to The Age last month, Burnet Institute deputy director Margaret Hellard said the modelling used to chart the state’s path out of lockdown had been revised to be more “optimistic” around hospitalisations and case loads during the festive season.
However, the refreshed models were based on the Delta variant and did not factor in the Omicron variant of concern.
Mr Foley said with the trajectory the state was following out of Christmas, Victoria would be expected to see case numbers and hospitalisations “sadly, continue to increase”.
“Whilst modelling did in fact predict that we would be in this position, it nonetheless comes I’m sure as a shock to many Victorians to see that number increasing day in and day out,” he said.
Deakin University epidemiologist Catherine Bennett said she was now focused on the number of Victorians ending up in hospital – which has stayed “relatively constant” over recent weeks – instead of the daily tally.
“The modelling always overestimated hospitalisations, which is a good thing because our vaccination rates were not only high but they were rising rapidly, so even people who had just their first shot still had a good degree of protection,” she said.
“When we saw hospitalisations push up at the start of December, the numbers in ICU actually doubled, but we didn’t really see a change in daily case numbers at all. So the case numbers aren’t really telling us what’s going on out there anymore.”
About 87.5 per cent of those currently in hospital with COVID-19 are not vaccinated at all, according to Professor Bennett.
Nancy Baxter, the head of Melbourne University’s School of Population and Global Health, said hospitalisations still were a “lagging indicator”, with current hospital figures reflective of cases recorded around a week ago.
“We are seeing this dramatic rise in cases everywhere, and it’s likely both issues about who and how people are being tested around the holidays, but also a legitimate increase in transmission,” Professor Baxter said.
“People talk about the fact that everyone’s going to get Omicron and maybe that’s true, but not everyone can get it at once. If everyone gets it at once, our systems will collapse.”
In an opinion piece for The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald, epidemiologist Tony Blakely said while Omicron was less severe in its impact on health than the Delta variant – somewhere between 10 per cent to 50 per cent of the hospitalisation rate for notified cases – the acceleration to 11,201 cases in NSW in a single day is a warning.
Microbiologist and head of Melbourne’s Burnet Institute, Brendan Crabb, agrees. With many jurisdictions in the country still relaxing COVID rules to reward people, it leaves Australia in a difficult position, he said.
Victoria may now be facing the unique situation of potentially having simultaneous Delta and Omicron outbreaks, which Professor Crabb said was worse than Delta alone.
“I think we have a situation now where COVID in general is much more likely to find vulnerable people in our population than it was before,” he said.
“Twenty-one percent of the country has never seen a COVID vaccine or virus before, and they’re going to face Omicron.
“We should hit the handbrake fast and introduce a suite of minimally disruptive measures, starting with masks and an improved mask strategy, and we need to get ventilation right.”
Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said in his daily update that while the modelling had signalled a substantial increase in cases over December and January, Omicron required the state to “continue to be flexible in the way we address and live through this pandemic”.
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2021-12-29 06:18:36Z
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