— it is an unwelcome title.
According to global databases, if you ignore the tiny islands of
Montserrat, Anguilla and The Falklands, Australia led the world in
per-capita COVID infections. Saturday’s numbers moved the official
seven-day average to more than 48,000 new daily cases, putting Australia
behind only Germany and the US in total new daily cases recorded.
Victoria now has 77,235 known active cases. 10,197 were reported
yesterday, 528 are in hospital, 21 in ICU. and 10 lives were lost.
Locally Baw Baw Shire reported 103 new infections and now has 797 known
active cases. Latrobe City reported 112 new infections and now has 910
known active cases.
University of Melbourne epidemiologist Nancy Baxter told the ABC “We’re
at a point where COVID is now one of the major killers of Australians,
and probably by the end of the year is going to be one of the top three.
Cases are going up, and they’ll go up even further once the new
sub-variants of Omicron take over, which they will do.”
How many of the 350,000-plus active cases in Australia right now will
have chronic impacts? Overseas data suggests 10 per cent of those who
become infected will have impacts on their heart, lungs, organs and brain.