It comes as the number of Covid cases dropped across Victoria in the last week. The state recorded more than 58,000 active cases and 10,000 new infections on August 2 compared to 37,000 active cases and 5898 new infections on Wednesday. Covid-related hospitalisations also decreased by 192 cases. Monash University infectious disease modeller Romain Ragonnet said the country has experienced the worst of the pandemic. “The population now has a very high level of immunity from both vaccination and infection,” he said. “This was not the case before the Omicron waves so I am confident that we are now in a more favourable situation than we were a few months ago.”Leading modeller for the NSW government James Wood told The Australian that it was unlikely the country would see another epidemic wave this year. “I think the most likely situation is another variant will branch off Omicron,” he said.“There might be another Omicron-like leap, but if that doesn’t happen, we can expect the viruses to branch off from Omicron, and then we would expect hybrid immunity to be relevant, so we’d expect to see smaller waves and less overall health impacts on the population.“If we don’t see an Omicron-like jump, this is as bad as it’s going to get.”Mr Ragonnet said he expected future waves to be smaller.“New variants will most likely be sub-lineages of the Omicron variant to which a large proportion of the Australian population has now been exposed,” he said. “This infection-induced immunity combined with the high vaccination rates mean that future waves are expected to be smaller and should induce less pressure on the health system.”Professor of infectious diseases epidemiology and modelling Emma McBryde backed that assessment. “I would say we are likely going to see smaller less severe waves in future,” she said. “Natural infection and vaccination and the combined effect are all helpful in reducing severe disease for Omicron but unfortunately have a much smaller effect on transmission. “The most important question going forward for the Omicon waves is ‘how recent was your last vaccine’ because actual numbers of vaccines are no longer relevant.”
Powered by WPeMatico
