As of November 25, 2022 the number of COVID-19 cases in the Australian state of Victoria was at 40,482 people per 100,000 of the population. Since mid-2021, uncontained outbreaks in NSW and Victoria caused the government to move away from its former 'Covid zero' approach.

The economic impact of lockdown measures

In March of 2020, one survey showed that over 70 percent of Australians expected the economic outlook in Australia to get worse in the next three months. For most industries this prediction was correct, with the worst hit industries being hospitality, tourism, and gyms and fitness. However, some businesses flourished under the shift in pandemic consumer behavior with food delivery services, homewares and online gambling showing significant increases in consumption.

On September 30, 2020, there were 17 new reported confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Australia. Australia's daily new confirmed coronavirus cases peaked on July 30 with 746 new cases on that day. This was considered to be the second wave of coronavirus infections in Australia, with the first wave peaking at the end of March at 460 cases before dropping to less than 20 cases per day throughout May and most of June.

 A second wave

Australia’s second wave of coronavirus found its epicenter in Melbourne, after over a month of recording low numbers of national daily cases. Despite being primarily focused within a single state, clusters of coronavirus cases in Victoria soon pushed the daily number of recorded cases over that of the first wave, with well over double the number of deaths. As a result, the Victorian Government once again increased lockdown measures to limit movement and social interaction. At the same time the other states and territories closed or restricted movement across borders, with some of the strictest border closures taking place in Western Australian.

 Is Australia entering into a recession?

After narrowly avoiding a recession during the global financial crisis, by September 2020 Australia had recorded two consecutive quarters of economic decline, hailing the country’s first recession since 1991. This did not necessarily come as a surprise for many Australians who had already witnessed a rising unemployment rate throughout the second quarter of 2020 alongside ongoing restrictions on retail and hospitality trading. However, thanks to welfare initiatives like JobKeeper and a government stimulus payment supplementing many household incomes, the economic situation could have been much worse at this point.

As at January 31, 2022 there had been a total of 2,580,386 COVID-19 cases confirmed in Australia. After maintaining a 'COVID zero' infection control policy from the beginning of the outbreak and much of 2021, subsequent outbreaks in the second half of 2021 saw the Australian government shift its policy away from trying to eradicate domestic cases of COVID-19 to a staged reopening of state and international boarders with infection control measures.

Abstract

JHU Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases, by country

Documentation

PHS is updating the Coronavirus Global Cases dataset weekly, Monday, Wednesday and Friday from Cloud Marketplace.

This data comes from the data repository for the 2019 Novel Coronavirus Visual Dashboard operated by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering (JHU CSSE). This database was created in response to the Coronavirus public health emergency to track reported cases in real-time. The data include the location and number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, deaths, and recoveries for all affected countries, aggregated at the appropriate province or state. It was developed to enable researchers, public health authorities and the general public to track the outbreak as it unfolds. Additional information is available in the blog post.

Visual Dashboard (desktop): https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

Section 2

Included Data Sources are:

• World Health Organization (WHO): https://www.who.int/
• DXY.cn. Pneumonia. 2020. http://3g.dxy.cn/newh5/view/pneumonia.
• BNO News: https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus-cases/
• National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China (NHC): http://www.nhc.gov.cn/xcs/yqtb/list_gzbd.shtml
• China CDC (CCDC): http://weekly.chinacdc.cn/news/TrackingtheEpidemic.htm
• Hong Kong Department of Health: https://www.chp.gov.hk/en/features/102465.html
• Macau Government: https://www.ssm.gov.mo/portal/
• Taiwan CDC: https://sites.google.com/cdc.gov.tw/2019ncov/taiwan?authuser=0
• US CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html
• Government of Canada: https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/coronavirus.html
• Australia Government Department of Health: https://www.health.gov.au/news/coronavirus-update-at-a-glance
• European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC): https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/geographical-distribution-2019-ncov-cases
• Ministry of Health Singapore (MOH): https://www.moh.gov.sg/covid-19
• Italy Ministry of Health: http://www.salute.gov.it/nuovocoronavirus
• 1Point3Arces: https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/en
• WorldoMeters: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

%3C!-- --%3E

Section 3

**Terms of Use: **

This GitHub repo and its contents herein, including all data, mapping, and analysis, copyright 2020 Johns Hopkins University, all rights reserved, is provided to the public strictly for educational and academic research purposes. The Website relies upon publicly available data from multiple sources, that do not always agree. The Johns Hopkins University hereby disclaims any and all representations and warranties with respect to the Website, including accuracy, fitness for use, and merchantability. Reliance on the Website for medical guidance or use of the Website in commerce is strictly prohibited.

Section 4

**U.S. county-level characteristics relevant to COVID-19 **

Chin, Kahn, Krieger, Buckee, Balsari and Kiang (forthcoming) show that counties differ significantly in biological, demographic and socioeconomic factors that are associated with COVID-19 vulnerability. A range of publicly available county-specific data identifying these key factors, guided by international experiences and consideration of epidemiological parameters of importance, have been combined by the authors and are available for use:

https://github.com/mkiang/county_preparedness/

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and rising cases of coronavirus in the community, the Australian state and federal governments implemented various lockdown measures and directives in order to limit the spread of the virus. Independently of these restrictions, many Australians also made changes to their lives and behaviors in order to mitigate the likelihood of contracting or spreading the virus. In May to June 2020, 94.5 percent of Australians who were surveyed on the household impacts of COVID-19 indicated that they had kept their distance from others. Social distancing behaviors were the most common behavioral changes made by Australians, with just over a quarter indicating that they had worn a facemask.

 Life under lockdown

Australia experienced its second spike in coronavirus cases in August 2020, with the majority of new daily cases concentrated in the state of Victoria. In response, Melbourne was placed under stage four lockdown and the rest of the state at stage 3. This significantly restricted the movement and social interactions of Victorians and included a nightly curfew in Melbourne. Despite these strict controls, most Victorians were accepting of the stage four lockdown measures. Although these restrictions continued to put a strain on the already struggling economic situation and the second quarter of 2020 witnessed a jump in unemployment rates.

 Travel restrictions

International visitors to Australia almost completely stopped in the months after Australia’s first case of COVID-19 in January 2020. This was partially due to the federal Government’s restrictions on international travel but many Australians independently chose to change or cancel travel plans. Separate to the Federal Government’s restrictions, most of the state and territory Governments also implemented boarder restrictions of their own, with Western Australia restricting all movement across its boarders.

JHU Has Stopped Collecting Data As Of 03/10/2023

After three years of around-the-clock tracking of COVID-19 data from around the world, Johns Hopkins has discontinued the Coronavirus Resource Center’s operations.

The site’s two raw data repositories will remain accessible for information collected from 1/22/20 to 3/10/23 on cases, deaths, vaccines, testing and demographics.

Novel Corona Virus (COVID-19) epidemiological data since 22 January 2020. The data is compiled by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering (JHU CCSE) from various sources including the World Health Organization (WHO), DXY.cn, BNO News, National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China (NHC), China CDC (CCDC), Hong Kong Department of Health, Macau Government, Taiwan CDC, US CDC, Government of Canada, Australia Government Department of Health, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), Ministry of Health Singapore (MOH), and others. JHU CCSE maintains the data on the 2019 Novel Coronavirus COVID-19 (2019-nCoV) Data Repository on Github.

Fields available in the data include Province/State, Country/Region, Last Update, Confirmed, Suspected, Recovered, Deaths.

On 23/03/2020, a new data structure was released. The current resources for the latest time series data are:

• time_series_covid19_confirmed_global.csv
• time_series_covid19_deaths_global.csv
• time_series_covid19_recovered_global.csv

---DEPRECATION WARNING---
The resources below ceased being updated on 22/03/2020 and were removed on 26/03/2020:

• time_series_19-covid-Confirmed.csv
• time_series_19-covid-Deaths.csv
• time_series_19-covid-Recovered.csv

On Octover 11, 2020 there were 31 people with COVID-19 that were being treated in hospitals across Australia. Over the period since April 2020 hospitalizations due to COVID-19 rose dramatically from late July after a period of relatively few hospitalizations in June. This corresponds with the second wave of coronavirus cases in the country, which was mostly concentrated in the state of Victoria.

For further information about the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, please visit our dedicated Fact and Figures page.

Australia’s first coronavirus case was discovered on January 25, 2020. The infected person was a man from the coronavirus epicenter, Wuhan, who had flown into Melbourne on the 19th of January. Although some of the first infections in Australia can be attributed to travelers from China, by March 17, infections attributed to people who had visited the United States and Italy had overtaken China.

Travel restrictions

With the rate of infection in China climbing steadily in early February 2020, the Australian government began to implement measures to slow the spread of the coronavirus. These measures involved social distancing and broad travel restrictions, including the closing of boarders to all foreign nationals arriving from China on February 1. Overall, the number of travelers moving through airports across Australia had already begun to drop noticeably and Chinese students were one of the largest groups to be affected. By March, well after the 2020 school year had begun, over 50 percent of Chinese university students with visas to study in Australia had not entered the country. This also added to economic concerns, with Chinese students representing just over 12 billion Australian dollars in education export income in 2019.

Cruise ships

During the COVID-19 pandemic a number of cruise ships were hit by the virus, which spread amongst passengers and staff in the closed environments. The Diamond Princess, which was quarantined in Yokohama, Japan, had around 180 Australians on board, of which at least a quarter contracted the coronavirus. The Ruby Princess was another cruise ship attributed to the spread of COVID-19 within Australia. On March 19, 2020, the ship docked in Sydney harbor and 2,700 passengers disembarked. By March 24 it was confirmed that 133 passengers had contracted COVID-19 on the Ruby Princess.

Based on a comparison of coronavirus deaths in 210 countries relative to their population, Peru had the most losses to COVID-19 up until July 13, 2022. As of the same date, the virus had infected over 557.8 million people worldwide, and the number of deaths had totaled more than 6.3 million. Note, however, that COVID-19 test rates can vary per country. Additionally, big differences show up between countries when combining the number of deaths against confirmed COVID-19 cases. The source seemingly does not differentiate between "the Wuhan strain" (2019-nCOV) of COVID-19, "the Kent mutation" (B.1.1.7) that appeared in the UK in late 2020, the 2021 Delta variant (B.1.617.2) from India or the Omicron variant (B.1.1.529) from South Africa.

The difficulties of death figures

This table aims to provide a complete picture on the topic, but it very much relies on data that has become more difficult to compare. As the coronavirus pandemic developed across the world, countries already used different methods to count fatalities, and they sometimes changed them during the course of the pandemic. On April 16, for example, the Chinese city of Wuhan added a 50 percent increase in their death figures to account for community deaths. These deaths occurred outside of hospitals and went unaccounted for so far. The state of New York did something similar two days before, revising their figures with 3,700 new deaths as they started to include “assumed” coronavirus victims. The United Kingdom started counting deaths in care homes and private households on April 29, adjusting their number with about 5,000 new deaths (which were corrected lowered again by the same amount on August 18). This makes an already difficult comparison even more difficult. Belgium, for example, counts suspected coronavirus deaths in their figures, whereas other countries have not done that (yet). This means two things. First, it could have a big impact on both current as well as future figures. On April 16 already, UK health experts stated that if their numbers were corrected for community deaths like in Wuhan, the UK number would change from 205 to “above 300”. This is exactly what happened two weeks later. Second, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly which countries already have “revised” numbers (like Belgium, Wuhan or New York) and which ones do not. One work-around could be to look at (freely accessible) timelines that track the reported daily increase of deaths in certain countries. Several of these are available on our platform, such as for Belgium, Italy and Sweden. A sudden large increase might be an indicator that the domestic sources changed their methodology.

Where are these numbers coming from?

The numbers shown here were collected by Johns Hopkins University, a source that manually checks the data with domestic health authorities. For the majority of countries, this is from national authorities. In some cases, like China, the United States, Canada or Australia, city reports or other various state authorities were consulted. In this statistic, these separately reported numbers were put together. For more information or other freely accessible content, please visit our dedicated Facts and Figures page.

This datasets presents regional estimates of unemployment of Local Government Area (LGA) regions for each quarter starting December 2010 up to June 2020. The boundaries used for the dataset follow the 2019 edition of the Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS).

Small Area Labour Markets (SALM) presents regional estimates of unemployment and the unemployment rate at two small area levels:

• Approximately 2,200 ABS SA2s, on a State/Territory and Metropolitan/Non-metropolitan basis. Estimates for the Capital City and the Rest of State are provided for the States and the Northern Territory.

• For approximately 540 Australian LGAs.

The SALM Estimates have been smoothed using a four-quarter average to minimise the variability inherent in small area estimates. A description of the methodology used to prepare the estimates in this publication is available on the Explanatory Notes page.

Caution: Highly disaggregated estimates of unemployment and the unemployment rate at the SA2 and LGA level can display significant variability and should be viewed with caution, particularly in regions where the SA4 level unemployment data are showing considerable volatility. As a result, quarter-to-quarter comparisons may not indicate actual movements in the labour market so we recommend using year-on-year comparisons. Even then, large movements in the SA2 and LGA data should be viewed with caution.

The COVID-19 pandemic began to have a significant impact on the Australian labour market from March 2020, when Australia recorded its 100th COVID-19 case and the initial shutdown of non-essential services and trading restrictions took effect. Learn more about the dataset at the LMIP.

AURIN has spatially enabled the original data. Smoothed Estimates are not available for all SA2s and LGAs, for more information see the SALM 2016 ASGS Changeover User Guide.

This datasets presents regional estimates of the unemployment rate of Statistical Area Level 2 (SA2) regions for each quarter starting December 2010 up to June 2020. The boundaries used for the dataset follow the 2016 edition of the Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS). Small Area Labour Markets (SALM) presents regional estimates of unemployment and the unemployment rate at two small area levels: Approximately 2,200 ABS SA2s, on a State/Territory and Metropolitan/Non-metropolitan basis. Estimates for the Capital City and the Rest of State are provided for the States and the Northern Territory. For approximately 540 Australian LGAs. The SALM Estimates have been smoothed using a four-quarter average to minimise the variability inherent in small area estimates. A description of the methodology used to prepare the estimates in this publication is available on the Explanatory Notes page. Caution: Highly disaggregated estimates of unemployment and the unemployment rate at the SA2 and LGA level can display significant variability and should be viewed with caution, particularly in regions where the SA4 level unemployment data are showing considerable volatility. As a result, quarter-to-quarter comparisons may not indicate actual movements in the labour market so we recommend using year-on-year comparisons. Even then, large movements in the SA2 and LGA data should be viewed with caution. The COVID-19 pandemic began to have a significant impact on the Australian labour market from March 2020, when Australia recorded its 100th COVID-19 case and the initial shutdown of non-essential services and trading restrictions took effect. Learn more about the dataset at the LMIP. AURIN has spatially enabled the original data. Smoothed Estimates are not available for all SA2s and LGAs, for more information see the SALM 2016 ASGS Changeover User Guide.

This datasets presents regional estimates of unemployment of Statistical Area Level 2 (SA2) regions for each quarter starting December 2010 up to September 2021. The boundaries used for the dataset follow the 2016 edition of the Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS).

Small Area Labour Markets (SALM) presents regional estimates of unemployment and the unemployment rate at two small area levels:

• Approximately 2,200 ABS SA2s, on a State/Territory and Metropolitan/Non-metropolitan basis. Estimates for the Capital City and the Rest of State are provided for the States and the Northern Territory.

• For approximately 540 Australian LGAs.

The SALM Estimates have been smoothed using a four-quarter average to minimise the variability inherent in small area estimates. A description of the methodology used to prepare the estimates in this publication is available on the Explanatory Notes page.

Caution: Highly disaggregated estimates of unemployment and the unemployment rate at the SA2 and LGA level can display significant variability and should be viewed with caution, particularly in regions where the SA4 level unemployment data are showing considerable volatility. As a result, quarter-to-quarter comparisons may not indicate actual movements in the labour market so we recommend using year-on-year comparisons. Even then, large movements in the SA2 and LGA data should be viewed with caution.

The COVID-19 pandemic began to have a significant impact on the Australian labour market from March 2020, when Australia recorded its 100th COVID-19 case and the initial shutdown of non-essential services and trading restrictions took effect. Learn more about the dataset at the LMIP (Labour Market Information Portal).

AURIN has spatially enabled the original data. Smoothed Estimates are not available for all SA2s and LGAs, for more information see the SALM 2016 ASGS Changeover User Guide.

COVID-19 rate of death, or the known deaths divided by confirmed cases, was over ten percent in Yemen, the only country that has 1,000 or more cases. This according to a calculation that combines coronavirus stats on both deaths and registered cases for 221 different countries. Note that death rates are not the same as the chance of dying from an infection or the number of deaths based on an at-risk population. By April 26, 2022, the virus had infected over 510.2 million people worldwide, and led to a loss of 6.2 million. The source seemingly does not differentiate between "the Wuhan strain" (2019-nCOV) of COVID-19, "the Kent mutation" (B.1.1.7) that appeared in the UK in late 2020, the 2021 Delta variant (B.1.617.2) from India or the Omicron variant (B.1.1.529) from South Africa.

Where are these numbers coming from?

The numbers shown here were collected by Johns Hopkins University, a source that manually checks the data with domestic health authorities. For the majority of countries, this is from national authorities. In some cases, like China, the United States, Canada or Australia, city reports or other various state authorities were consulted. In this statistic, these separately reported numbers were put together. Note that Statista aims to also provide domestic source material for a more complete picture, and not to just look at one particular source. Examples are these statistics on the confirmed coronavirus cases in Russia or the COVID-19 cases in Italy, both of which are from domestic sources. For more information or other freely accessible content, please visit our dedicated Facts and Figures page.

A word on the flaws of numbers like this

People are right to ask whether these numbers are at all representative or not for several reasons. First, countries worldwide decide differently on who gets tested for the virus, meaning that comparing case numbers or death rates could to some extent be misleading. Germany, for example, started testing relatively early once the country’s first case was confirmed in Bavaria in January 2020, whereas Italy tests for the coronavirus postmortem. Second, not all people go to see (or can see, due to testing capacity) a doctor when they have mild symptoms. Countries like Norway and the Netherlands, for example, recommend people with non-severe symptoms to just stay at home. This means not all cases are known all the time, which could significantly alter the death rate as it is presented here. Third and finally, numbers like this change very frequently depending on how the pandemic spreads or the national healthcare capacity. It is therefore recommended to look at other (freely accessible) content that dives more into specifics, such as the coronavirus testing capacity in India or the number of hospital beds in the UK. Only with additional pieces of information can you get the full picture, something that this statistic in its current state simply cannot provide.

This datasets presents regional estimates of unemployment of Local Government Area (LGA) regions for each quarter starting December 2010 up to September 2021. The boundaries used for the dataset follow the 2021 edition of the Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS).

Small Area Labour Markets (SALM) presents regional estimates of unemployment and the unemployment rate at two small area levels:

• Approximately 2,200 ABS SA2s, on a State/Territory and Metropolitan/Non-metropolitan basis. Estimates for the Capital City and the Rest of State are provided for the States and the Northern Territory.

• For approximately 540 Australian LGAs.

The SALM Estimates have been smoothed using a four-quarter average to minimise the variability inherent in small area estimates. A description of the methodology used to prepare the estimates in this publication is available on the Explanatory Notes page.

Caution: Highly disaggregated estimates of unemployment and the unemployment rate at the SA2 and LGA level can display significant variability and should be viewed with caution, particularly in regions where the SA4 level unemployment data are showing considerable volatility. As a result, quarter-to-quarter comparisons may not indicate actual movements in the labour market so we recommend using year-on-year comparisons. Even then, large movements in the SA2 and LGA data should be viewed with caution.

The COVID-19 pandemic began to have a significant impact on the Australian labour market from March 2020, when Australia recorded its 100th COVID-19 case and the initial shutdown of non-essential services and trading restrictions took effect. Learn more about the dataset at the LMIP (Labour Market Information Portal).

AURIN has spatially enabled the original data. Smoothed Estimates are not available for all SA2s and LGAs, for more information see the SALM 2016 ASGS Changeover User Guide.

At August 10, 2020, 49 percent of Victorian survey respondents in Australia rated their state government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic as good. At this time, the state of Victoria was recording the highest number of daily COVID-19 cases in the country.

For further information about the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, please visit our dedicated Fact and Figures page.

This datasets presents regional estimates of the labour force of Statistical Area Level 2 (SA2) regions for each quarter starting December 2010 up to June 2020. The boundaries used for the dataset follow the 2016 edition of the Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS). Small Area Labour Markets (SALM) presents regional estimates of unemployment and the unemployment rate at two small area levels: Approximately 2,200 ABS SA2s, on a State/Territory and Metropolitan/Non-metropolitan basis. Estimates for the Capital City and the Rest of State are provided for the States and the Northern Territory. For approximately 540 Australian LGAs. The SALM Estimates have been smoothed using a four-quarter average to minimise the variability inherent in small area estimates. A description of the methodology used to prepare the estimates in this publication is available on the Explanatory Notes page. Caution: Highly disaggregated estimates of unemployment and the unemployment rate at the SA2 and LGA level can display significant variability and should be viewed with caution, particularly in regions where the SA4 level unemployment data are showing considerable volatility. As a result, quarter-to-quarter comparisons may not indicate actual movements in the labour market so we recommend using year-on-year comparisons. Even then, large movements in the SA2 and LGA data should be viewed with caution. The COVID-19 pandemic began to have a significant impact on the Australian labour market from March 2020, when Australia recorded its 100th COVID-19 case and the initial shutdown of non-essential services and trading restrictions took effect. Learn more about the dataset at the LMIP. AURIN has spatially enabled the original data. Smoothed Estimates are not available for all SA2s and LGAs, for more information see the SALM 2016 ASGS Changeover User Guide.

The time it takes for the number of COVID-19 deaths to double varies by country. The doubling rate in the United States was 139 days as of December 13, 2020. In comparison, the number of confirmed deaths in Australia doubled from 450 to 908 in the space of 117 days between August 18 and December 13, 2020.

COVID-19: We are all in this together The commitment of civilians to follow basic hygiene measures and maintain social distancing must continue. The wellbeing of populations cannot be jeopardized, and young people must also engage in the response. In Australia, the 20- to 29-year-old age group accounts for the highest number of COVID-19 cases. With lockdown restrictions lifted, many people have returned to their regular routines and jumped back into socializing. However, there are concerns about complacency and suggestions that young adults could be driving spikes in coronavirus cases.

Receive coronavirus warnings on your smartphone It is of paramount importance that countries keep a vigilant eye on the spread of the coronavirus. One way of doing so is to invest in track and trace surveillance systems. Electronic tools are not essential, but many countries are using contact-tracing smartphone apps to make the tracking of cases more efficient. In June 2020, a contact-tracing app was rolled out across Japan, and it received nearly eight million downloads in the first month. A COVID-19 alert app was also launched in Canada at the end of July 2020. The smartphone software is initially being piloted in Ontario, but it will soon be possible for people in other provinces to use the app and report a diagnosis.

At August 10, 2020, 72 percent of Victorian survey respondents in Australia supported the state government's implementation of a curfew as a response to the rise in COVID-19 cases in the state. At this time, only 12 percent of respondents opposed this measure.

For further information about the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, please visit our dedicated Fact and Figures page.

The Australian public health care system is regarded to be among the best in the world and over ten percent of the country’s GDP is spent on health. Nevertheless, as the novel coronavirus spread and put health care resources around the world to the test, Australians were concerned that hospitals and other health services could eventually become overwhelmed. However, as the rate of COVID-19 infections in Australia were on the rise in March 2020, more than half of Australians still rated their health system’s response to the virus as excellent or good.

Protecting the most vulnerable

Early observations of the virus in China showed that older COVID-19 patients were more likely to require hospitalization and respiration than younger patients and projections from the Australian Department of Health predicted that as many as one in five people with COVID-19 over the age of 80 would be admitted to the ICU. People with chronic health issues such as diabetes, heart disease, and respiratory conditions were also more likely to require additional medical attention if they contracted COVID-19.

Availability of health resources

As it became clear that a significant proportion of the world’s population would be exposed to COVID-19, most countries strived to ‘flatten the curve’ through social distancing measures. This concept aimed at delaying the spread of the virus in order ensure that medical facilities would not be overwhelmed and limited resources, such as respirators, would be available when required. Despite Australia’s public hospital system boasting more than 2.5 hospital beds per 1,000 of the population in most states and territories, the devastating public health emergency in Italy was a cause for concern. However, the Australian health system’s capacity proved to be adequate even as hospitalizations hit their peak in early April.

As of May 2, 2023, the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) had spread to almost every country in the world, and more than 6.86 million people had died after contracting the respiratory virus. Over 1.16 million of these deaths occurred in the United States.

Waves of infections Almost every country and territory worldwide have been affected by the COVID-19 disease. At the end of 2021 the virus was once again circulating at very high rates, even in countries with relatively high vaccination rates such as the United States and Germany. As rates of new infections increased, some countries in Europe, like Germany and Austria, tightened restrictions once again, specifically targeting those who were not yet vaccinated. However, by spring 2022, rates of new infections had decreased in many countries and restrictions were once again lifted.

What are the symptoms of the virus? It can take up to 14 days for symptoms of the illness to start being noticed. The most commonly reported symptoms are a fever and a dry cough, leading to shortness of breath. The early symptoms are similar to other common viruses such as the common cold and flu. These illnesses spread more during cold months, but there is no conclusive evidence to suggest that temperature impacts the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Medical advice should be sought if you are experiencing any of these symptoms.