Epidemiologist says Covid-19 cases could soon plateau

Covid-19 infections could soon begin to plateau despite a rising number of cases across Australia, several leading epidemiologists have claimed.

University of Melbourne physicist Dr Christopher Billington said NSW was fast approaching the peak of its current outbreak despite the state reporting a record 92,264 cases on Thursday.

‘Despite how messy the data recently [has been], any reasonable assumptions about what fraction of infections are being captured lead to the same conclusion: that the virus will soon no longer have enough potential hosts remaining to continue to spread with positive growth,’ he said.  

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Covid-19 infections could soon begin to plateau despite a rising number of cases across Australia, several leading epidemiologists have claimed

NSW has continued to smash pandemic records with daily cases continuing to rise with 92,264 recorded on Thursday, 34,759 on Wednesday and 25,870 on Tuesday.

The sharp uptick has been credited to the inclusion of Rapid Antigen Test results into the daily tally. 

Some 61,000 of the new positive cases announced on Thursday were from RATs, with 50,729 collected over the last seven days. 

Victoria’s infections also climbed by 37,169 on Thursday with 16,843 from RATs. 

Deakin University’s Catherine Bennett said there would be a ‘catch up bump’ in the daily tally before case numbers began to finally fall.

‘It’s certainly not increasing in the way it has,’ she said. 

Australian National University epidemiologists Peter Collignon said the state would likely hit its peak next week.

He agreed RATs should be included in the daily count as it helped health authorities keep track of the spread of the virus.

‘But to some degree, that’s why hospitalisation and [intensive care admissions] are the most important cases to look at,’ professor Collignon told Australian Financial Review.  

An infectious disease expert from the Kirby Institute, Professor Greg Dore, predicted the peak in Omicron cases would be seen on Thursday.

‘Lots of Covid uncertainty around, but NSW Omicron wave cases to peak tomorrow a definite,’ he tweeted on Wednesday night.

NSW this week introduced $1,000 fines for people who don’t report positive RAT results.

That’s despite Customer Service Minister Victor Dominello admitting it will be ‘almost impossible’ to enforce.

‘It’s almost going to be impossible in many ways to enforce,’ he told Nine Network.

‘But the majority of the states and territories in the country have gone down the path of issuing a fine or putting a fine in place – Tasmania, South Australia, Northern Territory, ACT – and some have chosen the other path of just saying please do it.’ 

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