Monday 17 January 2022

Living the pandemic ' new normal' in New South Wales January 2022


Want to know why in New South Wales chaos is the 'new normal'?


COVID-19 published data finally confirmed a truth - by week ending 9 January 2022 only 78.3% of total NSW population was fully vaccinated. Note: it’s possible that government was using June 2019 or 2020 population totals which would result in a lower fully vaccinated percentage total.


What this means is when Dominic Perrottet became premier in early October 2021 the real vaccination rate of the total state population (ABS pop. 30 June 2021) was under 55% & by 25 November 2021 it was still not the loudly boasted about 80% total. Even with est. 42% of the population aged 12 to 90 years of age & over being fully vaccinated.  And he knew those vaccination rates were misleading as he had been a member of NSW crisis cabinet since its creation.


Yet knowing all this Perrottet still kept Morrison & Berejiklian’s insane 'living with COVID’ push alive by further reducing public health protections in the face of a new Omicron Variant Outbreak combining with an existing Delta Variant Outbreak. 


The NSW Premier and MLA for Epping intentionally opened up vulnerable villages, towns & cities in 128 local government areas and communities them to fend for themselves.


The rest is history. Because ‘opening up’ the state with a real full vaccination rate well under the promised 70-80% (a percentage range much of the expert advice to government was based on) and, with the bare minimum of a test, trace, contact & isolate public health structure in place, the combined Delta-Omicron infection growth began to surge and is on its way to being an epidemiological tsunami which will toss New South Wales this way and that for at least the next six weeks, perhaps longer.


This because, despite the fact that full vaccination of those 12 to 90 years of age & older has now reached est. 86.1%, a significant number of those vaccinated since 22 February 2021 no longer have a high level of protection against the virus. 


By the week ending 9 January 2022, 68.9% of all COVID-19 cases hospitalized across the state were patients who had been fully vaccinated sometime in the last 22 months and, as of 15 January only 25.4% of all fully vaccinated NSW residents have received a vaccine booster injection to increase waning immunity levels.


Even reinstating a weak mishmash of previous public health restrictions is not going to change what is happening now that the virus has reached the status of uncontrolled.


The exact number of daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual COVID-19 cases which have occurred in the New South Wales resident population can no longer be reliably quantified. The 'let it rip'  mentality of the Australian and NSW Coalition Governments had overseen the disintegration of a public health response to SARS-CoV-2 the virus and COVID-19 the infectious disease it caused.  A situation which was laid bare by December 2021 when it became impossible to test or count every person in the state who was displaying/fallen ill with COVID-19 symptoms.


There were at total of 23,456 new confirmed COVID-19 cases reported by NSW Health to 8pm Saturday 15 January 2022, with the deaths of 20 people of whom 14 people were vaccinated against COVID-19 and six people were not vaccinated.

NOTE: The aforementioned total new cases includes both positive PCR and RAT results, but excludes those 11, 204 positive RAT results included in 15 January figures which actually occurred in the last 7 days. It seems that the difficulty in sourcing a RAT has resulted in only est. 2,478 COVID-19 positive home being reported within the last 24 hours to 8pm 15 January.


Currently there are 2,650 COVID-19 cases admitted to hospital, including 191 people in intensive care, 61 of whom require ventilation.


As of 8pm 15 January there are 342,838 active COVID-19 cases in the state - less than 1% of these people would currently be in hospital and the remainder are understood to be self-managing their illness outside of a hospital setting either in the home or insecure accommodation.


Currently NSW Health is recording the incidence of COVID-19 diagnostic testing in the last four weeks up to 15 January as 125 PCR tests done per 1,000 head of population. Since 26 November 2021 a large proportion of all positive PCR tests have not had genomic sequencing.


According to NSW Health of the 20,978 new cases confirmed by PCR testing as at 8pm on Saturday 15 January 2022: 4,063 are from South Western Sydney Local Health District (LHD), 3,139 are from Western Sydney LHD, 2,336 are from South Eastern Sydney LHD, 1,875 are from Northern Sydney LHD, 1,858 are from Sydney LHD, 1,755 are from Hunter New England LHD, 1,458 are from Illawarra Shoalhaven LHD, 989 are from Nepean Blue Mountains LHD, 686 are from Northern NSW LHD, 610 are from Central Coast LHD, 571 are from Murrumbidgee LHD, 489 are from Southern NSW LHD, 439 are from Western NSW LHD, 257 are from Mid North Coast LHD, 67 are from Far West LHD, 2 are in correctional settings, and 384 are yet to be assigned to an LHD.


To 8pm 15 January, 686 COVID-19 cases confirmed by PCR testing were recorded across 7 local government areas in Northern NSW Local Health District:


Tweed Shire353 cases

Byron Shire126 cases

Ballina Shire 84 cases

Lismore City49 cases

Clarence Valley33 cases

Richmond Valley28 cases

Kyogle Shire13 cases

TOTAL 686

NOTE: NSW Location database is only updated 5 days out of every seven so postcodes for 15 January not yet available at time of posting.


Currently there are 52 COVID-19 positive patients in hospital in Northern NSW, with 8 of these in ICU.



IMAGE: found on Twitter


The Weekend Australian reported on 16 January 2022:


It is as we feared,” Dr Chris Ingall, from the hospital’s medical staff council, told the publication.


We are seeing an almost exclusively unvaccinated population in the hospital and exclusively unvaccinated in the intensive care ward at this point.


We predicted this, we said there would be a tsunami here, everyone predicted it would sweep through the pockets of the unvaccinated.”…..


One of the people in ICU is Mullimbimby-based tarot card reader and reiki master Helen Dean who had previously protested against vaccine mandates.


She caught the virus last month and has been on a ventilator since Christmas Day…...


The Daily Telegraph reported she was taken off life support on Saturday but remains in ICU…..


Meanwhile, NSW Health data has revealed the impact anti-vaxxers are causing on the health system.


Of NSW’s Covid deaths, 420 were unvaccinated while just 96 had the jab.


The Daily Telegraph also estimated the cost of ICU per patient per day is about $4375.


SOURCES


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