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Christian Kent

Time for a stats update! Aussie actuarials just dropped their annual update last week — big thanks to @KarenCutter — your approach is a gold standard.

Link here: actuaries.digital/2024/04/05/e

Context is great fun, almost as much as it is useful. We have a good picture of "good-news-bad-news".

2023 in context:

Standardised death rates (SDRs) for 2015 to 2023 — showing that very important pre-2019 data.

Y-axis is 400-600. We are approaching normal, but a way off.

A trend chart showing 9 data points for 2015 to 2023, of all deaths all causes in Australia. There is a trend line drawn that shows a good downward line from the 540s to the 510s from 2015-2019, and extending that to now in 2024 shows 490s if not for the pandemic. The actual data stayed on trend in 2020 and 2021 thanks to Australia's unique interventions (closed borders, contact tracing), with numbers either side of 500 exactly as before, within the trend line range. But 2022 had a spike at 550, and 2023 is still elevated at 510. If only going by this chart alone, the next figure for 2024 (to be reported in 12 months from now) can be expected to return to trend + range of deviation pre-pandemic.
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Christian Kent

@KarenCutter I'll show my 3 favourite graphs of the 2024 report.

More good-news-bad-news: Here, you can see September 2023 was a good moment.

The chart is only 2022-2023 (Australia) but does give a breakdown of Total, Covid+related, Respiratory, Dementia, and Other Causes.

This corrects a "fact" I had from last November, when the (live, less reliable) data showed our first day of zero deaths since 2021 (delta lockdown). No sign of it here, oddly.

Trend: Ending in 2025

Excess deaths in Australia (% of predicted total) by month in 2022 and 2023 The blue line (total excess deaths, all causes) shows many spikes, one for each wave of Covid that broke out in Australia 2022-2023: Dec 2021, July & December 2022, May & November 2023. Clearly each peak is reducing in a fairly straight line, and a gross extrapolation points to 2025 or 2026 to reach zero. Or background noise perhaps. The Covid (orange) line may level out based on the recent peak. The Other Causes (silver) line has no trend at all, except that it has begun to exceed Covid and should remain so from the end of the May 2023 wave. The troughs are also interesting because they went below 0% excess for the first time in August-September 2023 (since Australia's borders reopened). The three lines that went below 0% excess are: Total, Respiratory, Dementia.
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Christian Kent

Australia: You Are Here

Where do you think you are on this map, if I took the year numbers off the timeline?

"The pandemic is over: 2022" is just as bad as "Mission Accomplished: 2003" (Iraq)

Most people got infected in 2022, then 3+ times since. My only two were in 2023, one with months of feeling dizzy-drunk. Despite a 2-week-old 😓

It's not personal — if a chunk of folks are in denial that this hit them, too

But it does help answer: Will it be over? 2025?

Weekly deaths from COVID-19 and COVID-19-related for Australia This shows a lot of zero death rate in 2020 and 2021 thanks to closed borders and contact tracing. A famous peak of 150 in mid-2020 following the nursing home outbreaks in Melbourne, well known. Omicron, but also borders reopening, showed the result of 2021's lesser peak, 100. But then the real story starts: A massive peak of 500+ in January 2022 due to all restrictions being relaxed and a Christmas outbreak. The true danger of the Omicron strain and its sub-strains were felt in Australia for the first time, but not remembered. The trough was barely lower than the previous peak, 100. Then 2022 continued with more dire news, with a peak in May of 200, that turned into a 2-month plateau, and another peak in July 2022 of 400. The next trough was in October 2022, but only reached 50. Yet the previous highs had reset expectations so much, that when numbers fell below 100 in September 2022, all restrictions were lifted and announcements were prolific for the end of the pandemic. A quick visual scan shows that these "pandemic are over" announcements were during Covid death rates as high as the July 2020 crisis. The next peak was 250 for Christmas 2022, followed by another trough of 50 in February 2023. Peak of 180 in May 2023, followed by a 3-month trough of 30-40 in July-August-September. Another peak of 100 in November 2023, with the chart ending with the wave mostly high at the end of 2023.
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Christian Kent

People in 2020 were right to ask "When will the pandemic end?"

They may not have been right to go back to normal (May 2020, I'm looking at you), but the question is still VERY valid.

We're getting within reach now of seeing the end of — though I'd desperately like to see a sterilising immunity improved vaccine. Like, 12 months ago.

That still leaves one thing:

Ongoing illness, permanent damage. Plenty of advice 24 months ago to avoid the most infections for the most time.

Christian Kent

Since …

When are we seeing standards? I could've said improvements, but I'd just like a standard.

Or even metrics. I don't mean the air's freshness (CO2 is a useful proxy, $400, and a hole in the window). I mean some sort of numeric measurement for the building itself. A permanent value for the living / working space's ability to refresh its air.

Submarine designs have talked about this for a century.

And Germany has office & home window-opening culture.

Apr 11, 2024, 04:39 AM·Public·Web
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