Victorian COVID-19: shifting frontiers
The slowing of the spread of COVID-19 across Australia in the past week is great news. The tough (but fair) restrictions on individual movement and the economy is paying dividends and appears to have avoided Australia the catastrophic health outcomes that are being experienced in Europe and the USA.
In my last blog I commented on the sociodemographic profile of the first cases in Victoria and NSW. Now a couple of weeks later, as community transmission is becoming more critical, the pattern of cases has evolved. With Victoria being the only Australian jurisdiction to publicly report the cases by location of residence, analysis can be done here on the spread of the virus through the community.
I reported on the initial wave of cases focused in the Stonnington and Mornington Peninsula municipalities, however the new cases over the past week have shifted north with a focus on the north-east municipalities of Banyule and to a lesser extent Nillumbik. Figure 1 below illustrates the growth in new cases between 1 - 8 April and the change in the per capita rate. This shows that Banyule is the clear outlier with 25 new cases and the per capita rate growing from 36 to 55 per 100,000 people (19 per cent).
As the composition of these cases is not publicly reported it is not known whether they are community or overseas acquired, however it illustrates the importance of contact tracing to keep track of new infections and hot spots. Take care out there!
Figure 1: Number of new Victorian COVID-19 cases from 1-8 April 2020 and the growth in the cases per 100,000 people by LGA
