By the numbers: Is there more Covid-19 out there right now?

Tuesday, 21 May 2024

• The number of Covid-19 cases is rising, as is the number in hospital, though no Covid patients are in intensive care.

• A new family of variants has emerged around the world.

• The new mutations appear to be driving a global growth in Covid numbers.

The cough and cold season is upon us, and GPs are starting to see an “uptick” in people getting sick.

It comes as experts are also signalling a possible increase in Covid-19 cases in New Zealand as newer variants appear to be driving an increase in cases overseas.

So, what’s our Covid-19 outlook at the moment?

Here’s a by-the-numbers breakdown of how things look right now.

6146

The number of cases reported across Aotearoa in the week ending May 19.

This was up from 3922 the week prior.

It’s important to note that this metric comes with a caveat: This is a self-reported figure, and relies on people out in the community who have swabbed at home using a rapid antigen test (RAT) reporting their result.

Covid-19 modeller, University of Canterbury Professor Michael Plank said while the proportion of infections being reported is “way, way down” from earlier in the pandemic, reported cases could still be indicative of an underlying trend.

It’s “another piece of the puzzle” indicating things could be increasing.

762

The daily new case average, as of the week ending May 19.

This was up from 477 the week prior.

242

The number of people in hospital with Covid-19 as of midnight on Sunday.

This was up from 152 people the same time the week earlier.

Plank said hospital admissions data looked to be increasing recently, which would mirror an uptick in cases.

Zero

Of those hospitalised with Covid-19, none were in an intensive care unit.

4.73 million

The average number of SARS-CoV-2 genome copies detected per person, per day in wastewater for Aotearoa in the week ending May 12 — in essence, the levels of Covid-19 detected in wastewater.

This was down slightly from 5.96m the week prior, which had been a “significant” jump up from where things had been tracking previously, Plank said.

This reading was “down a bit” on the previous week, but it was “nevertheless still up on where it was a few weeks ago”, he said.

Going into that big “jump”, this had been at 3.08m the week before (ending April 28).

It’s important to note that experts say one week of waste water data doesn’t make a trend, as it can bounce up and down a fair bit.

8.59 million

To put that figure into context, the highest average level of Covid-19 detected in waste water this year to date was 8.59m back in early January, around our summer wave.

In summary

Overall, Plank said the data gives a stronger indication that Covid-19 numbers might be on the rise in Aotearoa.

The last two weeks’ worth of data indicated that numbers do appear to be increasing “significantly”, he said.

Heading into the winter respiratory illness season - when hospitals traditionally see high levels of demand for respiratory illnesses - the timing of this could put “significant” pressure on the system over the next month or so, Plank said.

A new family of variants, referred to as ‘FLiRT’ variants - named after the technical names for their mutations - recently emerged internationally.

Their mutations appear to give them a bit of an advantage in terms of how quickly they can spread, and look to be driving a growth in numbers internationally, Plank earlier said.

“There seems to be a number of countries where those numbers are starting to increase, again coinciding with the arrival of those variants”.

These newer variants were increasing their “market share” in wastewater and clinical data in Aotearoa, Plank said, but how much of an increase we might see was “unclear”, he told Stuff last week.