230 MORE CASES, BUT GROWTH RATE JUST 4.4%

We keep getting new cases of coronavirus, which is proving very stubborn. But it's down to just 230 more in the past 24 hours for a growth rate of 4.4 per cent, after going as high as 35 per cent. The death toll still stands at 28. Models used by experts to predict we could run out of emergency beds by tomorrow now seem very wrong.   

We keep getting new cases of coronavirus, which is proving very stubborn. 

But it's down to just 230 more in the past 24 hours for a growth rate of 4.4 per cent, after going as high as 35 per cent.

The death toll still stands at 28.

This prediction from last week - that we could  run out of emergency beds by tomorrow - now looks hopelessly alarmist, as I said at the time, looking not at the models but at the real-time data:

Australia could run out of ICU beds to treat coronavirus patients in as few as 10 days if infections continue to rise at the current rate of exponential growth, a new study has predicted.

The study published in the Medical Journal of Australia says Australia’s mortality rate from COVID-19 could be as high as that of Italy unless urgent measures are taken to slow the spread of infection...

In the MJA study, anaesthetist Hamish Meares and Macquarie University biostatistician Michael Jones calculated that based on Australia’s ICU bed capacity of about 2200, hospitals would be overwhelmed once the number of infections hit 22,000...

“The model’s predictions are broadly supported by data from Italy and suggest that Australian hospitals do not currently have the capacity to accommodate possible demand and, as a result, the future mortality rate may be much higher than expected,” the authors say...

New modelling by the University of Western Australia predicts that the government’s social-distancing measures are likely to cut infections by two-thirds to around 10,000 a day at the peak of the crisis...

Dr Meares and Professor Jones based their calculations on a model that assumes for every 20 new cases of COVID-19, three will need admission to a low-acuity hospital ward and one will need ICU admission each day. Each patient is assumed to require ICU admission for 10 days... 

“Australia has around 2200 ICU beds, which implies if public health measures fail to curb the rate of growth, Australia’s ICU capacity will be exceeded at around 22,000 COVID-19 cases sometime around the 5th April, 2020.” 

The models being relied on by medicos seem as unreliable as those of many global warming scientists.

The official ones relied upon by the Morrison Government should be released so that we can have a proper debate on what we actually face and what the proportionate response should be.

For instance, the decision to cancel elective surgeries to free up beds in intensive care units now seems to be unnecessary, at least for the foreseeable future.