Updated

April 07, 2020 12:00:46

The charts below provide a guide to show how Australia is faring in the fight against the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

They use figures that are part of a national database of every confirmed case since January 25, when NSW and Victoria reported the country’s first four cases.

The database, compiled by ABC News, tracks confirmed cases by gender, age, location, source of infection and other information published in case reports from state and federal health authorities.

It is supplemented with additional reporting by ABC News and updated daily to show the spread of the disease across Australia’s states and territories.

The latest update was at ___

(Tap/hover on any chart for more information.)

To date, state and territory health authorities have reported ___ confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Australia, including __ deaths.

Roughly ___ , or ___ new cases, were reported in the past 48 hours.

(Note that national daily and cumulative counts are likely to be lower earlier in the day, as some states/territories will not have reported their figures yet.)

But the number of confirmed cases is only part of the story. An important measure of the spread of infectious disease is the growth rate — often measured in terms of how long it takes the number of confirmed cases to double.

This is easier to see when the number of confirmed cases is plotted on a log scale.

The chart above shows how often the number of confirmed cases in Australia doubles. It’s a key measure that shows how quickly the virus is spreading.

Each tick on the vertical axis is 10 times the value of the previous tick. The slope of the line shows how long it takes the number of cases to rise from 10 to 100 to 1000, and so on.

The steeper the line, the faster the growth rate.

Here is the same chart but for each of the states and territories. It shows the largest states are on roughly the same growth trajectory.

A similar kind of chart can be used to compare Australia’s growth rate to other countries.

This one uses the same log scale but rather than exact dates, it tracks each country’s cumulative case count from the day that country reached 100 cases. This brings each country onto the same timeline.

It shows the growth rate in Australia is slower than in the US or Italy — where cases double every 2-3 days — but faster than Japan, Taiwan or Singapore, where it takes a week or longer for cases to double.

The chart also shows that countries such as South Korea and China started with very steep growth rates but now have much flatter lines, which means they have successfully slowed their growth rates. (For more on how other countries are winning the fight against COVID-19, read this analysis.)

Figures for Australia show ___ has the highest number of cases, making up ___ of the total number of infections, followed by ___ and ___.

However, the picture shifts when population size is taken into account.

Adjusting the figures for the number of residents shows ___ has the highest rate of infection per 100,000 residents, followed by ___, then ___.

___ has the lowest rate of infection, followed by ___.

But there’s more to infection rates than case numbers.

Data on the percentage of tests that come back positive for COVID-19 show __, then __ and ___, have the highest positive test rates, while ___ and ___ have the lowest.

This is because case numbers and diagnosis rates are heavily influenced by the rate of testing. The broader the testing regime, the lower the odds of finding positive cases.

___ has tested the most samples of any state or territory, followed by ___ then ___.

However, adjusting for population shows ___ has the highest rate of testing, at roughly ___ the rate in ___, which has the nation’s lowest rate of testing.

___ and ___ have the second- and third-highest rates of testing, respectively.

Another way of looking at rates of testing is to compare the number of residents to the number of tests, both as a share of the national total.

This shows ___ and __ lead the nation when it comes to testing, while __, ___ and ___ lag significantly.

___ accounts for ___ of Australia’s population but ___ of samples tested in Australia, while __ accounts for ___ of the population but ___ of tests.

By contrast, ___ makes up ___ of the population but only ___ of tests.

Similarly, ___ accounts for just over ___ of Australia’s population, but only ___ of tests.

Nationally, ___ people have died — __.

Across Australia, __ people have recovered, according to federal government figures.

This means ___ confirmed cases are still current.

People ___ have the most confirmed cases of any age group.

However, adjusting these numbers for the size of each age group shows people __ have the highest rate of confirmed cases.

They are followed by people __, __, and those ___.

When a case is confirmed, health authorities undertake detailed tracing to identify the source of transmission.

Nationally, ___ of cases were acquired overseas, while ___ were acquired locally.

This includes ___ transmitted locally with no known link to a confirmed case or cluster.

A breakdown of the national data by gender suggests little difference in the rate of diagnosis between men and women.

Your questions on coronavirus answered:

Notes about this story

  • Population figures sourced from ABS Australian Demographic Statistics, Sept 2019
  • Federal and state/territory health authorities update their figures at different times of the day, so the numbers shown do not reflect the same point in time in each jurisdiction.
  • National figures for testing rates are from the federal health authority, which issues updates at different times to the states and territories. For this reason, national testing figures may differ from the those derived by summing states/territory figures.
  • From March 30, some states and territories began adjusting their total case numbers as a result of false positive tests or double counting of cases. Because we are not informed where the errors occurred, we have reduced the cumulative totals accordingly.
  • Data on confirmed cases by age group are from the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System. It lags both federal and state/territory figures but is the most up-to-date source of age data at the national level. It is updated daily.
  • Dates refer to the date the case was reported by authorities, except in these instances:

    – The 5th, 6th and 7th confirmed cases in Victoria have been assigned to the date they were first cited in official press releases. These cases were first announced on March 1, as having recovered from the virus.

    – Dates for the 7th and 8th confirmed cases in Queensland (Diamond Princess cruise ship evacuees) are based on ABC News reports. The 9th confirmed Queensland case, another Diamond Princess evacuee, was first announced in a press release on March 3.

Credits

Topics:

infectious-diseases-other,

diseases-and-disorders,

respiratory-diseases,

disease-control,

medical-sciences,

government-and-politics,

diseases,

australia,

nt,

nsw,

act,

qld,

sa,

vic,

tas,

wa

First posted

March 17, 2020 05:49:54



Source link