Covid-19

NSW records 1262 community cases and seven deaths

Published

5 years ago

September 12, 2021

Apna News

New South Wales has recorded 1262 locally acquired Covid-19 cases in the 24 hours to 8pm yesterday and seven deaths.

A cyclist in Sydney on Friday 27 August 2021 during the Covid-19 lockdown.

PHOTO: ABC

These figures come from 105,505 tests yesterday.

There are now 1206 people in hospital, with 220 people in the ICU and 92 on a ventilator.

Those who died were:

A man in his 20s from western Sydney died at Nepean Hospital.
A woman in her 40s from south-western Sydney died at Campbelltown Hospital
A woman in her 50s from south-western Sydney died at St George Hospital
A man in his 50s from western Sydney died at Westmead Hospital
A man in his 70s from south-western Sydney died at Liverpool Hospital
A man in his 80s from south-western Sydney died at Liverpool Hospital
A woman in her 80s from south-western Sydney died at Liverpool Hospital

Chief health officer Kerry Chant said the 20-year-old had significant underlying health conditions and was unvaccinated.

According NSW Health’s own modelling, infections are anticipated to peak this week and hospitalisations will surge until mid-October.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the “next couple of months will be the most challenging” and in response to images of crowds gathering at weekend on Sydney’s beaches, has asked the community to not become complacent.

“We know that people are tired after the enormous things we’ve been asking of them, that we must stay the course,” Berejiklian said.

“We know the weather adds to our positivity … we cannot let down our guard and as much as we would love to think about things we can offer people between now and [October], we have to take a very safe and cautious approach.”

Dr Chant said she hoped to see a “sustained decline” from next week.

“Those projects depend on how effectively we can control the spread outside the local government areas of concern,” the chief health officer said.

“At the moment we have too many bushfires going.”

Today was New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s final regular 11am media conference after last week saying she and her ministerial counterparts would only front the cameras “intermittently” on a “needs basis”.

From Monday, the NSW 11am press conference will no longer go ahead and will be replaced with daily videos, published by NSW Health, showing updated figures and information.

Berejiklian rejected suggestions she was trying to dodge public scrutiny, and promised to remain accountable.

Yesterday, New South Wales recorded 1599 locally acquired Covid-19 cases and eight deaths in the 24 hours until 8pm on Friday 10 September.

Meanwhile Victoria today recorded 392 new locally acquired cases of Covid-19 and Queensland has recorded no new community cases of Covid-19.

– ABC

Related Topics:Australia Covid 19 Featured NSW World News

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Covid-19

Covid-19 update: 8544 new cases, 39 further deaths linked to virus

Published

3 years ago

June 19, 2023

News Staff

There were 8544 new cases of Covid-19 reported in Aotearoa in the week to midnight on Sunday, and a further 39 deaths attributed to the virus.

The total number of deaths attributed to the virus in New Zealand is now 3077.

In addition, there were 246 cases in hospital at midnight on Sunday with six in intensive care.

The seven-day rolling average of cases was 1217.

Last week, 9883 new Covid-19 cases were reported and a further 37 deaths were attributed to the virus.

Source: RNZ

Covid-19

Dr Jonathan Howard: why US doctors spread Covid disinformation

Published

3 years ago

May 21, 2023

News Staff

An American doctor believes more than 800,000 Americans would be alive today, if the US had taken New Zealand’s Covid approach.

Jonathan Howard, who is the chief of neurology at Bellevue Hospital in New York, said he was angry that influential health professionals minimised the seriousness of the virus.

“We want them infected,” was the call of then presidential science adviser Paul Alexander.

It’s also the title of Howard’s new book, which tells the story of how some medical and public health professionals came to become anti-vaccine and pro herd immunity.

He told Kim Hill on Saturday Morning there was a deluge of mis-information from prominent US doctors, some of whom wanted to actually spread the virus.

“Famous doctors from our top universities went on television and told people that Covid was just going away, that it was just the flu, that young people under the age of 65 have essentially no risk,” he said.

“And not only were there not attempts to limit the virus, these were loud influential voices who wanted to spread it.

“You can read quotes from our former Covid advisor, Donald Trump’s former Covid advisor, celebrating rising cases, saying this is a good thing when cases rise, which is shocking and astonishing.”

While Howard said there were obvious differences between the two countries, many lives could have been saved if the US had taken a similar approach to New Zealand.

“If we had limited infections until we had vaccinated the vast majority of our population, we would have potentially had hundreds of thousands of people still alive today, there’s no question about that.”

However, our zero-Covid strategy wasn’t without its critics, with Stanford professor Jay Bhattacharya writing that it had “cost New Zealand dearly”.

“I think that the fact that most of your grandparents are still alive means that zero Covid did not cost you dearly,” Howard said in response.

“I don’t discount that, there were real costs of the lockdowns, I don’t know anyone who argues otherwise and I want to be very clear that I was protected from those costs, meaning I am very fortunate to be employed, I worked throughout the pandemic, I was never lonely, I don’t have my own business.”

But Howard said he didn’t think that the alternative – letting the virus spread freely – would have yielded a better outcome.

He said that when forklifts were needed to move bodies into giant refrigerated trucks in New York, it was fantasy to imagine the city could have operated as normal during the pandemic.

“You talk about deferred healthcare – every single healthcare worker was working with Covid patients, our hospitals were overflowing,” he said.

“So when I hear people lament they missed cancer screenings, who would have done those screenings? Would elderly patients have left their house to go to crowded waiting rooms to get a mammogram for example? I don’t think so.

“I think that the fantasy is that things could have just been normal if only if it hadn’t been for overly cautious politicians.”

By comparison, New Zealand did well, Howard said.

“I look at the numbers, I look at your death rate with great jealousy.” he said.

“And I think for long periods of time your economy was more open than ours was because we had to keep locking down, just because there were overwhelming outbreaks of the virus.”

Howard said the fact many older New Zealanders were still alive compared with the US statistics, showed the success of this country’s Covid strategy.

Source RNZ