COVID Insights

Over the last week I shared some important messages on COVID-19 on social media. I’m sure everyone knows by now that action taken to limit the movement of all Australians via social distancing and self isolation is primarily for the purpose of ensuring our health system can cope with the likely growth in numbers of people infected with the virus.

Below I have included some other insights coming out of the data, always including the data source. Of course, things are changing rapidly. Data changes daily and the conditions of our government’s response do too.

Why are we self isolating?

I strongly support the government’s increasingly strict self isolation message, but I felt that one thing lacking was the reason WHY we need to isolate ourselves. And why we must do it immediately!

Around the world it has been shown that countries where the numbers of new cases each day begin to climb exponentially, are the countries whose health systems end up under significant pressure. Sometimes they are completely overwhelmed as we’ve seen in Italy. When this happens, sick people cannot be given the necessary treatment to fight the virus, resulting in numbers of deaths that are higher than they need to be. If a country can flatten this curve of new case growth, then the health system can manage and people can receive the treatment they need. This is why nearly every country around the globe has adopted social distancing, self isolation, and restricted movement. Denying the virus a free ride through our community means giving our health system a chance to help all who require it.

Information is the best way to increase understanding, so I have shared some graphs below to help people understand how fast the number of locally transmitted cases is growing. And we need to bust the myth that it is only a risk for older people. It is those in their 30s, 40s and 50s who are spreading the virus. Younger people can also end up in intensive care and possibly die from this virus.

These graphics speak louder than words. Australia’s curve is still going up exponentially (doubling every 3 days).

You will find this data at https://www.covid19data.com.au/ and this site is updated daily, so my advice to you is to login daily, stay aware and do not come out of your home until this curve flattens.

We know we can’t stop self isolating until the curve of new cases per day has flattened, because of what has happened in countries who are just ahead of us, and we are learning much from their experience. The curve for Wuhan began to flatten a number of weeks after the government imposed a very strict lockdown. Now after significant decline in new cases over the last month, the government is allowing some movement within the province. They have indicated that the lockdown will be lifted only if no additional cases are reported for two consecutive weeks. Now we watch for the same pattern in Italy. But remember, even when new cases start to ease, there are still a high number of people infected in the community and being treated in hospital, and in Italy’s case, still overwhelming the healthcare system.

What happens if we don’t self isolate?

The video I have linked here is confronting. It goes inside a first world hospital in Bergamo, Italy where the doctors are overrun with critically ill patients. Not all are old. Some are 30, 40 and 50 years old. My generation is at risk too.

This is why we are so worried in Australia because it would only take a few unnecessary gatherings, barbecues, weddings, soccer matches, for the virus to spread out of control.

At moment we are ok. But I was forced to stop almost all of the regular work I do and prepare to manage critically ill patients in case our ICUs run out of healthcare workers or get overloaded with patients.

The next few weeks are critical. Please do your part to convince your family and friends to stay home with their immmediate family only! Isolate from grandparents, cousins, mates, girlfiends. Don’t go kick a footy with mates. Don’t go to the beach for a surf. I wouldn’t be saying it if I didn’t believe it. Hopefully after seeing this you will have the information that makes sense of why we must act, and I hope you will pass this important information and message on to your friends and families. If we all do this now we stand a chance. #thisisnottheflu #stayathome

A message of reassurance

We have many reasons to be confident in the preparation of the Australian healthcare system. So many people have been working hard to prepare for this, and while the number of cases is still rising rapidly here, recent data shows that Australia is in the privileged position of having some of the highest COVID testing numbers in the world, and yet still relatively low case numbers and low numbers of deaths. This means we can have some confidence that we are capturing the true number of cases in our community, not just the really sick ones (the so-called “tip of the iceberg” as was the case in Italy and may also be the case in the USA). The strong message from the WHO, and from other countries who have achieved success in containing the virus, reinforces the importance of lockdowns in combination with testing.

Make no mistake, these huge testing numbers are thanks to the hard work of frontline healthcare workers. We should all be so grateful. Every one of these thousands of tests taken represents an act of bravery from a nurse or doctor who wanted to make our society safe. They have put on a mask, gown and visor and faced a possible COVID +ve case knowing the stories that we are all hearing from overseas, but wanting to protect their fellow Australians. We hope they will not be required to face the much more challenging task of maintaining the highest quality of care in the face of overwhelming numbers.

So, what can you do to make our society safer? You can #stayhome. Act like you already have the virus and don’t give it a free ride. Simple.

For anyone who wants to follow the data, here are a few sites I use.
https://www.covid19data.com.au
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
https://ourworldindata.org