Explainer: why are Covid infection rates in Australia so high compared with other countries?

As three new Omicron subvariants – BA.2.12.1, BA.4 and BA.5 – start to unfold in Australia, well being authorities are warning of winter surges in each Covid and the flu.

Reported Covid infection rates in Australia are already among the many highest in the world. As of knowledge from 2 May, Australia’s common day by day infection fee is 1,515 circumstances per million individuals – the second-highest in the world for nations with a inhabitants better than 1 million, after New Zealand (1,566 circumstances per million).

On Wednesday, Western Australia recorded its highest-ever day by day Covid figures with 9,782 circumstances.

Despite its dominance in individuals’s lives and day by day press protection over the previous two years, Australia’s response to the Covid pandemic has not featured prominently in the course of the election marketing campaign.

Why are reported infection rates in Australia so high compared with other nations – and regardless of sustained transmission of the virus, why do many now really feel apathetic about Covid?

Why are there so many Covid circumstances in Australia?

Prof Catherine Bennett, the chair in epidemiology at Deakin University, stated Australia’s high reported infection fee could also be the results of high “case ascertainment”.

Although PCR testing rates have dropped off in Australia, “we’re probably still doing it more so than anywhere else in the world”, Bennett stated. “We still have free PCR testing. A lot of countries don’t.”

The variety of confirmed Covid circumstances shouldn’t be relied on in isolation, Bennett stated. “If you compare us to, say, the UK, they look much better for infection rates,” she stated. “The UK’s confirmed case rate is 128 cases per million – less than a tenth of Australia’s 1,515 figure.

“Yet their hospitalisation rate per million is 209, and ours is 124. It suggests that they probably have twice as many [true] cases [as Australia].”

Prof Adrian Esterman, the chair of biostatistics on the University of South Australia, stated the precise case numbers in Australia are nonetheless many occasions the variety of reported circumstances.

“If we look at our PCR test positivity rates, they’re still very high,” he stated. “In the whole of Australia … 20% of all PCR tests are coming out positive. It tells us that there is an awful lot of Covid that isn’t being diagnosed and we do require more testing – the World Health Organization wants that percentage to be less than 5%.”

Esterman believes the sustained high transmission is because of the removing of public well being measures throughout the nation. “It’s a ‘let it rip’ policy,” he stated. “We’re getting more and more people reinfected.”

BA2.12.1, BA.4, and BA.5 are now in Australia. What does this imply for infections?

Three new subvariants of Omicron – BA.2.12.1, BA.4 and BA.5 – have been detected in Australia for the primary time.

“All three subvariants are about 25% more transmissible than BA.2,” Esterman stated.

Figures from South Africa and the US – the place reported Covid circumstances have risen in the final month – recommend that the rates of hospitalisation from the brand new subvariants are roughly the identical as for BA.2, Esterman stated. The new subvariants “will almost certainly take over”, he stated.

Covid numbers have plateaued at high ranges across the nation, and should subsequently rise once more as the brand new subvariants take maintain, Bennett stated. “There is the real risk of reinfection with these new variants.”

Are individuals changing into apathetic about Covid?

Peter Lewis, the manager director of the analysis firm Essential, stated there appears to be “a broad desire for people to move on from Covid even as numbers rise”.

Essential polling from August final yr confirmed that solely 15% of Australians would discover it acceptable to stay with greater than 1,000 Covid deaths yearly as lockdown restrictions had been eliminated. In 2022 to this point, there have already been greater than 5,000 Covid deaths.

“What we said we couldn’t contemplate we’re now shrugging our shoulders about,” Lewis stated.

Aliza Werner-Seidler, an affiliate professor on the University of New South Wales and the Black Dog Institute, stated Covid fatigue had been a significant component. “Over the last few years, there was a very genuine and appropriate fear and focus on Covid because of the potentially catastrophic outcomes.”

Now that the overwhelming majority of the inhabitants is vaccinated, and lots of have additionally had Covid, “some people are checking out of the conversation”, Werner-Seidler stated.

“The message that we’re getting in the day to day from our lack of regulation around this now … is that things are back to normal. People are booking cruises, people are planning weddings … if you don’t have a high-risk profile, it’s quite hard to resist this sense that this is something that we’re just going to live with now.”

In the shift to dwelling with Covid, Werner-Seidler believes there must be extra conversations concerning the impacts of the virus for high-risk teams, resembling those that are immunocompromised. “It’s really important not to undermine the validity of these people’s concerns,” she stated.

“The responsibility has been placed back on to the individual and in some ways I think it’s rather unfair.”

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Werner-Seidler, a scientific psychologist, emphasises that social isolation is a danger issue for a lot of psychological well being issues, and encourages at-risk individuals, in the event that they are comfy, to make plans for interacting with household and mates in Covid-safe method.

“The general public has, by and large, said: no more of this, fed up, not interested,” Esterman stated. “The trouble is we’re still getting hundreds and hundreds of deaths and each one of those is a grieving family.”

Bennett stated it was vital to scale back the variety of circumstances and deaths. “Every time we learn something more about long Covid it’s a reminder that if you can avoid infection, do.”

But she believes Covid insurance policies ought to encourage individuals to minimise particular person and collective danger by sporting a masks or social distancing, with out forcing necessities upon them.

“Public health messaging shouldn’t be about fear – either fear of the virus or fear of fines. In an emergency you might revert to that … [but] rules are not the way we manage infectious diseases normally.”

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