World news – Australia – New research shows that the rate of COVID-19 infection in Australia may be five times higher than what has been reported

Australia’s COVID-19 infection rate could be five times higher than reported, according to new research.

Research from the Australian National University and the University of Melbourne shows that infection rates between March and August across 15 countries were an average of 6. 2 times more than reported cases, and up to 17 times in Italy at the height of the epidemic.

The study estimated the true number of infections across 800 million people in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, South Korea, Australia and 10 European countries.

Professor Quentin Grafton, co-author of ANU, said the modeling found that the incidence rate in Australia was much higher than the confirmed zero ratio.. 10 percent of the population. More than 27,700 cases have been reported in Australia in total.

“Our model shows that the actual rate of infected and recovered people at the end of August may be five times higher than reported, with 0. 48 percent of the population or up to 130,000 people may have been infected. « .

“These findings raise serious questions about how we deal with all aspects of the coronavirus pandemic, including the ongoing morbidity and lifelong health impacts of infected people, how the lockdowns are implemented and managed, and how we make sure we are at the helm of this pandemic on a larger scale.

The true infection rate was determined by analyzing the number of COVID-19 deaths in each country.

Researchers took the number of deaths in each country and worked backwards to calculate how many people would be infected to get to this high number of deaths..

Professor Grafton said Australia had the best detection rate of 15 countries in April at 50 percent, but that this dropped to 20 percent due to the outbreak in Victoria..

“The key is that people need encouragement to test and have no inhibitions to do the right thing,” he said.

Professor Grafton said short waiting times and financial assistance for COVID-19 patients or those awaiting results is critical to boosting Australia’s reserve detection rate.

As Parafield’s block continues to grow in North Adelaide, the state is locked down for six days.

It is a “start hard, start early” response Professor Grafton said should be adopted in light of the new findings and what was learned from Victoria.

He said that every day a community stays out of lockdown, as cases continue to grow, it could nearly double the length of time the rules have to be strict to limit the spread of the virus.

“If you had 20 confirmed cases in Adelaide at the moment, it would imply that you have more than 20 cases, and significantly more than 20 cases,” Professor Grafton said.

« You might want to think that maybe we have 40 plus, or 50 possible cases.

« Then you are in a different mindset. It could be a lot more than we think, so we need to do something different.

Professor Grafton said Australia’s detection rate is unlikely to meet the true infection rate given the number of asymptomatic cases of MERS-CoV, but improvements could be made to return to 50 per cent..

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Coronavirus, infection rate, Australia