All posts by Adrian Esterman
Thousands more Australians died in 2022 than expected. COVID was behind the majority of them
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here. Last month, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released a report of mortality statistics. It showed that from January to July 2022, there were 17% more deaths (16,375) than the average expected for these months. This historical average…
COVID hospitalisations and deaths are rising faster than cases – but that doesn’t mean more severe disease
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here. Australia is currently in its third Omicron wave (second if you live in Western Australia). This one is caused by the subvariants BA.4 and BA.5. New variants gain an advantage over previous variants by being able to spread…
Australia is heading for its third Omicron wave. Here’s what to expect from BA.4 and BA.5
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here. Australia is heading for its third Omicron wave in the coming weeks, as BA.4 and BA.5 become the dominant COVID strains. BA.4 and BA.5 are more infectious than previous COVID variants and subvariants, and are better able to…
Planning a holiday? What’s the COVID situation in Bali, Fiji, NZ and the UK?
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here. Many of us are considering a long-delayed overseas trip. However, despite what our politicians are telling us, the pandemic is not over yet, and there is always the risk you could catch COVID on holiday or just before…
Isolation rules for close contacts are changing. What happens next?
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here. Close contacts of people with COVID in New South Wales and Victoria will soon no longer need to isolate for seven days. Other states and territories, including Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory, are considering or will likely…
COVID pandemic 2nd anniversary: 3 things we got wrong, and 3 things to watch out for
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here. Exactly two years ago, on March 11 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. This was two months after there were reports of a mystery virus infecting people in Wuhan, the most populous city…
When will this COVID wave be over? 4 numbers to keep an eye on and why
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here. Before Australia’s recent changes to COVID testing, working out when we reached the peak of cases was, in principal, straightforward. We looked at the numbers of new daily cases, diagnosed via PCR. From there, we worked out a…