Victorian active COVID cases hit record high

By in Australian Economy

| 95 comments

Victoria recorded another 1935 locally acquired COVID cases and 11 deaths:

By comparison, NSW recorded only 296 locally acquired COVID cases and four deaths:

The next chart plots the daily cases across both states:

Victoria’s active cases hit a new high, whereas NSW’s continued to fall:

A high 2.78% of tests in Victoria came back positive, according to COVIDBaseAU:

Victoria’s Reff also rose to 1.03:

By comparison, only 0.44% of tests in NSW came back positive:

And NSW’s Reff is only 0.80, but has ticked up:

Enjoy your Sunday everyone.

Unconventional Economist
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Comments

  1. Mr Tezza

    I’m sure the Let it Rip® Gold Standard™ Dude Who Saved Australia© Bin Chicken could have spun it with a more positive tone:
    “There are 15 more people who have acquired permanent immunity to COVID-19”

    • steve

      Yes the Drosten story is another intriguing tale.
      https://www.dzif.de/en/researchers-develop-first-diagnostic-test-novel-coronavirus-china
      He quickly developed the PCR test for SARS-CoV-2. How quick? Very quick.
      On January 7, China informed the world that the mystery pneumonia was indeed a coronavirus.
      It was not until January 11 that China shared the complete RNA genome.
      Yet Drosten reported he had successfully developed the test on January 16.
      Its worth bearing in mind that the WHO did not even start issuing daily situation reports until January 20 (SITREP 1). In that report, there were 258 cases in Wuhan with 6 deaths (which itself is an implausibly high CFR of 2.5% based on what we know now).
      So Drosten can only have started work after January 7, finished by January 16, and this was well before WHO was sufficiently concerned to issue daily reports.

      It gets even more implausible when you see that the WHO endorsed Drosten’s test back on January 13. Only 6 days after China confirmed it was a Coronavirus.

      Meanwhile on January 21, Drosten submitted his paper to the Eurosurveillance journal for publication. This journal usually takes weeks-months to review a paper before deciding to accept it for publication. Fortunately however, Drosten was one of the Eurosurveillance referrers who determine which papers are accepted. On January 22 (one day after submission), he accepted his own paper for publication. Good to have connections.
      https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2020.25.3.2000045

      Of note, Drosten did not develop his test from samples of the virus itself. Because China could not make them available. Because Beijing had ordered all labs to destroy all samples of SARS-CoV-2 on January 3 – 4 days before China knew a coronavirus was the causal agent.
      Hence Drosten used theoretical RNA sequences provided by China.

      https://cormandrostenreview.com/report/
      The first and major issue is that the novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (in the publication named 2019-nCoV and in February 2020 named SARS-CoV-2 by an international consortium of virus experts) is based on in silico (theoretical) sequences, supplied by a laboratory in China [1], because at the time neither control material of infectious (“live”) or inactivated SARS-CoV-2 nor isolated genomic RNA of the virus was available to the authors.

      • johnyaku

        Settle down.
        I work with the guys who do the genomic tracing for COVID. If you gave us the genomic sequence for a totally novel virus this morning we could design a test for you this afternoon — it’s really not that hard if you are across the bioinformatics.
        Go ahead and question the accepted narrative all you like, but please apply the same level of skepticism to the alternative hypotheses.

        • steve

          Sure. Jan 11 publication of genome, Jan 13 WHO endorse the test. The timeline is theoretically possible. Just.

          But it’s not plausible.
          Why develop a test for a disease that had purportedly killed just a few people by end of first week of January?
          And why did WHO endorse a test so quickly for a disease that they didn’t even bother issuing situation reports for another 10 days?
          Really?

  4. skippy

    https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.28.21264262v1

    Abstract

    We found no significant difference in cycle threshold values between vaccinated and unvaccinated, asymptomatic and symptomatic groups infected with SARS-CoV-2 Delta. Given the substantial proportion of asymptomatic vaccine breakthrough cases with high viral levels, interventions, including masking and testing, should be considered for all in settings with elevated COVID-19 transmission.

    So it seems the entire debate is similar to that depicted in the movie Jaws and should the public beaches be opened or not for the holidays. Which in real life is sorta like the filming of the movie on the island and all the dramas surrounding the constant failures of the mechanical shark [no booming around] throwing all the scheduling into disarray. After an especially troublesome few days and near the end of the day the thing started working again, everyone was on walkie talkies and throughout the entire island you could hear the shout “its working its working” all across the island, a spontaneous cheer went up from one end to the other by all that could hear …

    • SweeperMEMBER

      The window of infection and transmission in the vaxxed is far shorter than the unvaxxed.
      So if everyone in the eligible population was vaxxed the effective reproduction rate would be below 1 under delta *without masks or lock-down measures*
      We would have herd immunity, the virus wouldn’t spread and things could go beack to 2019 normal (not covid normal)
      Instead a small fraction of the community are selfishly deciding to put others who have done the right thing for public health at risk and leave everyone in a state of covid normal.
      So if they don’t get vaxxed, there absolutely does need to be mandates and vaccine passports forever due to their selfishness and disregard for others and society.

      • skippy

        No such thing as herd immunity chap, same same for natural immunity, its a total categorical error at onset and no goal post shifting or rhetorical mangling can change that. All that immunization does is potentially reduce symptoms which might reduce need for advanced medical care, it does not stop or limit transmission of the infection. Furthermore due to bad or down right false information e.g. outcome seeking, the unwashed have their choices stolen from them to advance some agenda for others [selfish].

        Furthermore the narrative about getting vaccinated at the moment and then your ***Free*** to get your life back is cavalier at best. Again allowing the virus to play out its potential uncontrolled so some ideological paradise is not threatened is the same mind set that allowed the GFC to happen – how did that work out.

        • SweeperMEMBER

          It’s not correct.
          Immunisation is not just about symptoms.
          Transmission between vaxxed and outbreaks sourced from vaxxed has much lower probability because 1. The vaxxed are less likely to have it to begin with and 2. The window of infection and transmission is much shorter in the vaxxed.
          All the evidence (and basic logic) bares this out.

          • skippy

            I don’t confuse ideological bias with logic, especially when rigorous science comes into conflict with it and as such the rhetoric becomes proper – post facto to make it seem[tm] in informed.

          • kiwikarynMEMBER

            86% of adults being diagnosed with covid in the UK are vaccinated. Exactly how are all those people “less likely to have it”?

      • The Claw

        The window of infection and transmission in the vaxxed is far shorter than the unvaxxed.

        What are typical R-values for a vaxxed population vs a partially vaxxed population vs unvaxxed population?

        What level of vaccination is needed to get the R-value below 1.0?

        Does the choice of vaccination make any difference to the above?

        • The Traveling Wilbur 🙉🙈🙊

          What’s the impact on that number if a significant percentage of either population are pirates?

          • Robert

            A patch is basically a mask you wear on your eye. Studies have shown that covid can enter the body through the eyelids, and having one eye patch basically halves this route of transmission, giving pirates a layer of protection.
            However, this protection is reduced if the pirate has a parrot on the shoulder, as being on the shoulder, and therefore close to the face means that parrots are often a vector for covid.

      • AK

        I would love that to be true Sweeper. That would be sunshine and roses. Unfortunately given overseas experience and the fact that we have a NSW government that sets the agenda Australia wide by virtue of being the weakest link w.r.t governance in “kick the can, deflect the blame, claim any success” fashion governments do:

        * “Everything will be normal once we get the jab”. A beautiful political/marketing message that encourages hope from what once was negativity and people love that. We all get the jab, and it buys us 6 months. Data will continue to be collected in this period (case numbers, etc) to back their narrative that they had a successful strategy.
        * Governments will claim success that they are “progressive” and at least “had a path out of this pandemic” spinning what is a monumental failure into the biggest success (particularly NSW). Given the weakest link theory states that IMO do the right thing on their own will become marginalised and white-anted from within as I said somewhere 3 months ago.
        * Some PR firm spinning NSW’s ultimate failure into ultimate success for the Liberals against more successful states will be probably be paid some hefty bonus at this point for successfully changing the narrative. They even got support for zero COVID societies to want to be infected – PR/Marketing is king! Weakest link theory works.

        6-9 months later…

        * The effects of the vaccine start to wear of. Administering recurring boosters becomes hard logistically and less feasible over time (see below on variants).
        * At this point a politican seeing the impending disaster PR wise (because that’s all that matters) will argue against case number testing based on cost and the fact that its a “solved problem”. The real motivation is to not discredit the narrative made 6 months earlier turning their corrupt pro-business failure into a political success.
        * In addition more mutative variants surface in the population (as they recently discovered in the UK). Given current COVID evolution (original, alpha, then delta) there’s no reason to think they will evolve to be more benign.
        * People start seeing friends of friends, and odd social media twitter posts of people suffering from COVID or members of their families. This is ignored by the media, and these people are shunned for being “anti….” or too pessimistic. Or they have “underlying health conditions” (e.g being pregnant with COVID). After all slander, and ridicule is a good way to win against truthful factors, even factual heartfelt tragic stories.
        * We see odd disruptions happening in schools, shopping centers, etc and people’s lives like a “wack-a-mole” game be disrupted. There won’t be lock downs because that is admitting the strategy doesn’t work and politically we can’t have that. All the controls happen under the carpet with very little coverage since that would harm the agenda…

        In the long run living with the COVID is probably going to be more about politics and tribes in society, and less about health. It will be more about opening borders, kickstarting the labor and property industries, making their political promises more worth while, and generally making people’s lives worse. All in while people will love the “freedom” of it not realising they gave up many more freedoms for really what is business interests.

        Entirely predictable, and sadly based on human psychology. We all belief what we want to believe and freedom and a life back to normal is something we all hope for – and therefore sadly easy to PR/spin around.

    • JasonMEMBER

      We found no significant difference in cycle threshold values between vaccinated and unvaccinated, asymptomatic and symptomatic groups infected with SARS-CoV-2 Delta.

      So what does that actually mean?

      • steve

        It’s extrapolation built on extrapolation

        With PCR test, each cycle doubles the amount of RNA in the original sample. The test turns positive with a certain amount of RNA is present. So each additional cycle required indicates there was half as much RNA on the original swab collected from the person.

        So they are saying no difference in cycles required to turn swap positive, regardless of symptoms or vax.
        The implication are
        1. There is a correlation between how much RNA collected on swab and how much on nose. This is random and depends on sampling technique.
        2. There is a correlation between the amount of RNA in your nose and anything meaningful. But RNA levels fluctuate dramatically over the course of the illness.

        These 2 uncontrolled variables dwarf any pattern that may exist between other variables such as symptoms or vax status.

        We are trying to squeeze far to much out of a PCR test.

        • skippy

          Please supply the information for evaluation that is not subject to rhetorical management in achieving a predetermined outcome as the philosophical ***forces[tm]*** all conclusions.

  5. SweeperMEMBER

    re. the segregation talk yesterday:
    Vaccine passports and mandates are not segregation for a very simple reason The un-vaccinated present a threat to the vaccinated.
    All the evidence and logic shows that the virus finds the un-vaccinated. The un-vaccinated then become the source of breakthrough cases in the vaccinated.
    So even at high vaccination rates, you still need to limit the un-vaxxed movements.
    eg. Say 95% of the eligible population >12yo are vaccinated, that’s roughly 80% of the total population vaccinated.
    Chance of infection and transmission reduces in children, which means the 5% unvaxxed of the eligible population are the primary risk to the vaccinated.
    Given this 5% is almost guaranteed to get it, and the risk of infection for the vaccinated isn’t zero, this implies the 5% will infect a portion of the vaccinated – fewer in number than un-vaxxed infections however they will still be infected.
    The risk of serious disease for the vaxxed will again be lower, however not zero.These are people who have done the right thing to protect public health and may have other conditions. This is not an acceptable scenario at all imo.
    If there is any discrimination here, it is actually against the vaxxed – because it’s the unvaxxed who have the agency. People have this completely arse about.
    Mandates and vaccine passports need to be a permanent measure when you actually think it through. It also follows that the vax rate should have been set at 100%, not 80% due to ScoMo misreading the Doherty modeling.

    • skippy

      See above … everything you just said is demonstrably wrong and makes some of 007s past antics look pale in comparison.

      • SweeperMEMBER

        what is wrong? Why are you defending a group of people who are reducing quality of life for everyone simply because they won’t roll up their sleeve?

        • skippy

          LOOK Chum I don’t even know where to start with your dialectal screed which is impervious to facts, nonsense about quality of life for example, dead or burdened with morbidity issues for long periods or life is not quality anything. Seriously … giving this virus the opportunity to play out its potential without any precautions is played out in history – inform yourself before opining.

          • skippy

            That you demand I make some ideological driven advocacy, which front runs any information supplied by royal science says more about you, how your mind works, what pops out the other side contra the best information and is lead driven regardless of information to the opposite …. sux to be you and maybe you can get a job of laying of hands to fix stuff …

          • SweeperMEMBER

            You are claiming Royal Science supports your position.
            Well if your position is that there is no difference in risk of transmission between vaxxed and unvaxxed it certainly does not.

          • skippy

            Sorry but the link refutes your personal opinion e.g. no – zero difference in transmission from vaccination which is preceded by all the knowlage in the book on infectious diseases I’ve already supplied.

          • skippy

            Just to deny you the wiggle room … there has never been any level of immunity to any virus … what you get regardless of infection survival anti bodies or vax is a lower risk of trauma from infection/reinfection, but it does not stop reinfection e.g. you can still get infected time and time again, not only that but you can spread it like Typhoid Mary the whole time and not have your personal life turned upside down, not that others might not have the same luck[tm].

            Again the main issue revolves around allowing the virus to mutate at logarithmic rates and the pot luck evolutionary risk associated with that. Not that this whole thing was a 5-ish year discovery process from day one because the virus is not stable.

          • SweeperMEMBER

            So your argument rests on *your interpretation* (yet to be stated) of an article (which in your link notes it is yet to be peer reviewed) and if you read carefully makes no conclusion of the relative risk of transmission in each cohort, and ignores:
            – All the developed worlds collected contact tracing data which clearly shows the source of breakthrough cases and outbreaks to be the unvaxxed
            – the same pattern in every developed country where positive cases reduce with vaccination rates and are overwhelingly found in the unvaxxed.
            – The overwhelming scientific consensus which has shown that vaccines do reduce transmission signficantly.
            – that it is a pandemic. So any reduction in risk of infection has a much larger reduction in overall transmission. eg. variables are cumulative or reinforcing.
            Emphasis again: the paper you cite never specifically makes a conclusion on the relative transmission in each cohort. And just as well, because even if the level of infection in each cohort were the same this still wouldn’t imply transmission is the same. but it does note:
            “Interestingly, the viral loads decreased more rapidly in vaccinated than unvaccinated individuals in Singapore [3], suggesting that vaccinated individuals may remain infectious for shorter periods of time”.

            Also note carefully:
            “Here, we report on Ct-values among fully vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals”

          • skippy

            NO interpretation its well worn royal science wrt virus, your philosophical dramas does not change anything, worse it shows how your mind works and how perception is altered by its demands.

          • SweeperMEMBER

            You realise you are providing ammunition to anti vaxxers?
            I am really surprised you have gone down this rabbit hole.
            And the comment about journalists is ridiculous when the anti vax movement is just another creation of the media and the way it reports both sides as credible when in reality the vaccines are safe and effective and during a pandemic absolutely essential.

          • skippy

            What are you wobbling on about ….

            Vaccines play a roll in public health even before covid. The argument is factual context in informed public health policy formation and public trust. Failure to do that is what gives the anti vax people ammo to screw others heads on backwards – look at all their lies ….

    • The Claw

      Mandates and vaccine passports need to be a permanent measure when you actually think it through

      You are a very dangerous person.

      • HoodyMEMBER

        Claw, you have to remember that Sweeper believes that Dan Andrews is a better leader than Ben Chifley. So with that in mind, whenever Sweeps comments on this subject it is always going to be a bit loopy.

        • skippy

          All of it is irrespective of the previous knowlage on infectious diseases, closely followed by the condition that Science is always circumspect to time, strangely or not philosophical musings are not subject to the same conditions.

      • reusachtigeMEMBER

        The guy is the enemy of freedom. There are many like him nowadays and unfortunately at some point we are going to have to fight them to their expiration for our freedoms.

  6. steve

    The premise behind vaccine passports?
    “The vaccine is effective and protects you from the virus, BUT it does not protect you from unvaccinated people who could be harbouring the virus.”

    God knows how the government managed to land that one. But we have bought it.

    • Mr Tezza

      They are part right: the vaccine does not protect you from unvaccinated (nor vaccinated) people harbouring the virus.
      Nor the virus itself…

    • skippy

      Your/Our public health is being administered in large by private interests, ideological social management,and a once in a millennium profit/loss scrum …. cuz EMH share holder value laid the foundations over the decades of neoliberal social organization. FFS just look and supply chains … weakest link is always labour arb manifesting in a time of crisis e.g. no depth, no slack, no feeder pool of new well trained and knowledgeable [including life skills] replacement workers, all because corporatism destroyed it so it could extract more rents …. no human relationship dramas allowed when conformity and malleability are the key policies for corporatist totalitarianism …. but then your a member …

    • kiwikarynMEMBER

      And somehow stopping a 20 year old from going to the pub somehow prevents an 80 year old in a rest home from catching covid…..

    • reusachtigeMEMBER

      It sickens me that everyone is just accepting this. Just wait until kids won’t be allowed to go to school anymore if unvaxxed. Hopefully they can be brought up in secret camps where they are taught to fight back and expire the chicken sh1ts with no fear or remorse!

    • The Traveling Wilbur 🙉🙈🙊

      If you got off your lazy àss and paid it on time, that wouldn’t happen.

      You still might get COVID.
      But at least you’d be able to legally drive yourself to hospital without worrying for the whole trip.

      The edumacated states allow you to pay by direct debit btw. Just saying.

  8. steve

    https://www.rollcall.com/2021/10/22/nih-grantee-in-wuhan-faces-questions-deadline-for-more-information-on-research/
    https://twitter.com/billcarson2162/status/1451013449455132675?s=21

    NIH finally admits it’s funding to EcoHealth Alliance was used for gain of function research by WIV. Specifically, WIV conducted research on the spike protein in order to make coronaviruses more able to infect humans.

    https://twitter.com/r_h_ebright/status/1450947395508858880?s=21

    This admission was extremely belated. It also contradicts previous denials from Fauci, who advised Congress and the media that NIH had not funded such research.
    Fauci of course is the subject of an upcoming Disney fairy …. er documentary.

    Granted, the coronavirus (which underwent GoF studies in Wuhan funded by the NIH via EcoHealth) is a different bat coronavirus to SARS-CoV-2. Which I guess leaves two possibilities
    1. The lessons learned from GoF research on this virus were then applied by the WIV to another virus so as to create SARS-CoV-2
    OR
    2. A bat in a cave in China stole the spike GoF idea from the WIV, created SARS-CoV-2, and then transported SARS-CoV-2 back to the Wuhan market. Despite 18 months of searching, neither the bat nor the cave have turned up.

    I do not expect NIH and EcoHealth would have any knowledge if GoF research was applied to SARS-CoV-2. I suspect that was a clandestine play by China. But I suspect NIH and EcoHealth are sh1tting bricks that this may be the explanation, and are hoping nothing turns up. The belated acknowledgment when further denial was no longer tenable is sinister.

    The NIH statement seems very carefully worded. It is at great pains to point out that the virus is very different to SARS-CoV-2 – which is correct. But it makes no mention of any representation to establish whether this GoF research was subsequently applied to further coronaviruses. Although you would hardly expect WIV to acknowledge this if it was true, you do wonder why this critical question was not even put – even if just for the record. Nor does this letter deny that this could not have happened.
    This is the elephant in the room ignored in 2 pages of bureaucratic waffle.

    Note also this NIH letter contradicts Daszak’s commentary about the BANAL-52 viruses recently discovered in bats in Laos. Daszak seized on this find, claiming that BANAL-52 was very close to SARS-CoV-2, which supported a natural explanation for the pandemic.
    Not so said the NIH – no closer than chimps are to humans.

    Someone is going to be left without a chair when the music stops. My money is on Daszak and Fauci.
    https://www.newsweek.com/firing-dr-fauci-now-may-help-joe-biden-manage-next-covid-wave-his-poll-numbers-1641690
    https://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2021/10/rubio-biden-and-media-continue-defending-fauci

    • bendy wire

      I’m truly gob-smacked that this Daszak fella is yet to be stoned to death in the street by one of 7 billion of the humans he inconvenienced via his reckless research! is he in hiding does anyone know?

      • steve

        He’s on Twitter. Bit subdued.

        His last comment
        “We must continue to surveil viruses in nature to predict future pandemics– bats captured in northern Laos carried viruses similar to SARS-CoV-2.”
        These Laos coronaviruses are the ones that NOH described as being very far removed from SARS-CoV-2

  9. The Claw

    Does anyone know if the cost of these vaccines is coming down as time passes?

    Normally mass-production allows an item to be produced more cheaply the greater the quantity is produced. Since so many billion people “need” these vaccines, I would assume that the free market (sic) would produce the vaccines for a few cents per shot.

    • The Claw

      There doesn’t seem to be much desire to investigate these adverse reactions.

      What would cause vomitting? A few harmless spike proteins in the arm muscle shouldn’t create that effect by my understanding. On the other hand if the spike protein is a dangerous pathogen and it was being created by cells on the stomach lining, then it makes sense.

      Does anyone know if the mRNA is able to get into stomach cells?

      • boomengineeringMEMBER

        Hope she joins the class action. The pro vaxer’s here will willingly give her their share of the compensation due.

      • kiwikarynMEMBER

        Like all the millions of women suffering hemorrhagic periods – “oh thats normal, nothing to worry about”. Like how does a vaccine get into your uterus?

      • JC

        Anecdotally there is a lot more people suffering from Myocarditis than showing up in the stats so far. My brother is a gen med specialist here in Perth. Has seen two cases just in the last two weeks. A friends mother had it as well. This is just in my circle. Disclosure, i am double vacced. But I will be a very angry man if they keep moving goal posts with vacc requirements.

  12. steve

    So had a booster shot this am.
    Within 30 minutes, my Medicare Covid digital certificate had upgraded the “valid from” date from March to today.
    30 minutes. On a Sunday.

    Seems considerable effort has been invested making this process highly autonomous.

    • skippy

      Don’t show sweeper this ….

      Cornelius Roemer
      @CorneliusRoemer
      ·
      Sep 14
      Comparing transmission advantages it’s interesting to see that the growth rate seems to be higher in countries with higher vaccination rate
      Spain: advantage ~70% (left)
      Denmark: ~30%
      Belgium: ~30%
      Germany: ~20%
      Switzerland: ~10% (right)
      Could this be a vax escape lineage? 7/

      • SweeperMEMBER

        Seriously? That’s your scientific approach?
        Why are you doing this? What’s your angle here?

        • skippy

          If you were not selling[tm] that vaccination as a one off solution without a layered approach and covid would never darken our door again I would not be pointing out the issues behind this approach. Which IMO has no scientific underpinnings unless you consider repeating the big pharma/PE health-extraction sales pitch a form of science.

    • Olaf

      Even the Tweet says nothing much to see here at the moment, move along.
      But somebody alert the nutritionist Feigl-Dingl pronto.
      Fire, fire.

      • skippy

        Tweet said need more study because of the risk factors of a vax escape, but yeah no screeching like from some mobs wobbling on about freedoms and liberties … let it rip …

    • kiwikarynMEMBER

      Then there are all the people who got blood clots that just lodged in arteries but only partially occluded them, so they don’t know they had blood clots, and the person is fine until something happens to fully occlude the artery. Like the next vaccine shot. People will be having heart attacks 20 years earlier than they would have had. Countries are already reporting a significantly higher excess death rate from cardiovascular events in the last 3 months. (UK, Germany, Netherlands, more to come I’m sure)