Confronting Covid maps show how fast Omicron spread in NSW and Victoria

Confronting maps show how fast Covid has spread since Australia’s first community transmission of Omicron a month ago, and where it’s spreading fastest.

A month ago Australia recorded its first community transmission of the new Omicron variant in Sydney.

Since then the country has broken Covid records over and over again, with state government data maps showing just how quickly the virus has spread, and which areas have the fastest-growing cases.

Australia has even experienced the biggest rise in daily average cases compared with its previous peak out of any country in the world, according to The New York Times.

A student at a western Sydney school was identified as the country’s first local Omicron case on December 2 last year.

A month on, the majority of the 140,000 active cases in NSW are likely the Omicron variant.

NSW recorded 20,794 new cases to 8pm on Sunday.

Of those cases, 4047 were from the Western Sydney Local Health District, 3966 were from South Western Sydney, 3576 were from South Eastern Sydney, 2122 were from Sydney CBD, and 1889 were from Northern Sydney.

Hunter New England also recorded 1612, Nepean Blue Mountain recorded 744, Illawarra Shoalhaven recorded 535 and Central Coast recorded 514.

Victorian active cases by LGA on January 3, 2022. Picture: Victorian Department of Health

Melbourne active cases by LGA on January 3, 2022. Picture: Victorian Department of Health

Victoria’s Covid commander Jeroen Weimar revealed on Monday the state had recorded more cases in the first three days of this year than it did in all of 2020.

“It shows you how fast Omicron is moving across the eastern seaboard,” he said.

“It shows you how rapidly we all need to move and adapt our behaviours to meet this oncoming challenge and this wave is now certainly right upon us.”

The state recorded 8577 new cases overnight.

In Victoria, the local government area of Melbourne has the highest number of active cases in the state with 2362.

However, in terms of case rate per 100,000 residents, Port Phillip is leading with 1333.9, followed by Melbourne (1319.9), Stonnington (1184.5), Yarra (1096.6) and Maribyrnong (1000.6).

In both NSW and Victoria, the age group with the most active cases is 20-29 year olds.

Hospitalisations

NSW and Victorian authorities have told residents to focus on hospitalisations in this Omicron wave instead of new cases.

In NSW, 1204 are in hospital with Covid and 95 are in ICU.

However, NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard has revealed many of those listed in the daily statistics are simply testing positive in routine checks after being admitted for broken bones, labour pains or mental health issues.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison today said he would push for a uniform definition of Covid hospitalisations.

“We need to get a standard definition on (Covid hospitalisation) because these are the key things we have to track now,” he told the Today show.

In Victoria, 491 are in hospital and 56 are in ICU.

Mr Weimar said Victoria was seeing fewer people end up in hospital in this wave, but it was too early to say it would stay that way.

“We’ve only been dealing with this Omicron wave in Victoria for the last two or three weeks,” he said.

“We need to see how the weeks ahead are going to look. With the numbers we are seeing even with a smaller rate of hospitalisation it will be a lot of people ending up in hospital.”

South Africa, which alerted the world to the new Omicron variant in late November, announced last week it had passed the peak of its Omicron wave with no spike in hospitalisations or deaths.

Fareed Abdullah of the South African Medical Research Council said Covid hospitalisations at the peak of this wave were half of what they were with the Delta wave.