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.

A summarised list of notified positive Polymerase chain reaction test (PCR) and Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) of SARS-CoV-2 (coronavirus) cases with age groups of bands of ten years. Ages 90 and above are grouped together.\r

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.

Each row contains a single SARS-CoV-2 case and associated LGA, postcode and the mode of transmission.\r \r An active case is someone who has tested positive and is currently in isolation. The department monitors active cases. A small number of cases that are not contactable are considered to have recovered after 28 days from diagnoses.\r \r Residential location is the address provided by a person during contact tracing. This is not where they were infected. It may not be where the case currently resides (for example they might be in a hospital). Postcode of the case does not reflect where a person was infected and in the event that a case is detected and a residential postcode is not available a post code of 3999 is used. A confirmed case is a person who has a positive laboratory test for coronavirus (COVID-19).

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.

A summary of both Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests and Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT) notified SARS-CoV-2 (coronavirus) cases with their associated LGA and postcode between 25 January, 2020 and 14 September, 2023

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.

The mode of transmission for each SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) case from the first Victorian case through to 30/06/2022

**Nota bene: these data were revised following a change in treatment method on 29 October 2021. The new data and the methodological note are available via the links below: ** Revised data Detailed note on the new methodology As part of its mission to support the management of the health crisis, the Directorate of Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics (DREES) uses pseudonymised data from the three main databases on the Covid-19 crisis: Si-VIC (hospitalisation), SI-DEP (screening) and VAC-SI (vaccination). These farms lead to numerous analyses, published or for use by crisis management actors, on the three themes: screening, hospitalisation and vaccination. DREES also makes crossovers between these bases, in order to shed light on issues that fall under several of these themes in a joint way. Thus, a regular follow-up according to the vaccination status of the number of positive cases in the Covid-19 tests and hospital admissions is carried out. Similarly, comparative analyses of the frequencies of severe Covid-19 cases depending on the variant or identified mutations of the virus affecting patients may be conducted.

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.

IntroductionA disproportionate number of COVID-19 deaths occur in Residential Aged Care Facilities (RACFs), where better evidence is needed to target COVID-19 interventions to prevent mortality. This study used an agent-based model to assess the role of community prevalence, vaccination strategies, and non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) on COVID-19 outcomes in RACFs in Victoria, Australia.MethodsThe model simulated outbreaks in RACFs over time, and was calibrated to distributions for outbreak size, outbreak duration, and case fatality rate in Victorian RACFs over 2022. The number of incursions to RACFs per day were estimated to fit total deaths and diagnoses over time and community prevalence.Total infections, diagnoses, and deaths in RACFs were estimated over July 2023–June 2024 under scenarios of different: community epidemic wave assumptions (magnitude and frequency); RACF vaccination strategies (6-monthly, 12-monthly, no further vaccines); additional non-pharmaceutical interventions (10, 25, 50% efficacy); and reduction in incursions (30% or 60%).ResultsTotal RACF outcomes were proportional to cumulative community infections and incursion rates, suggesting potential for strategic visitation/staff policies or community-based interventions to reduce deaths. Recency of vaccination when epidemic waves occurred was critical; compared with 6-monthly boosters, 12-monthly boosters had approximately 1.2 times more deaths and no further boosters had approximately 1.6 times more deaths over July 2023–June 2024. Additional NPIs, even with only 10–25% efficacy, could lead to a 13–31% reduction in deaths in RACFs.ConclusionFuture community epidemic wave patterns are unknown but will be major drivers of outcomes in RACFs. Maintaining high coverage of recent vaccination, minimizing incursions, and increasing NPIs can have a major impact on cumulative infections and deaths.

This dataset corresponds to paper titled "A Mathematical Model for COVID-19 Considering Waning Immunity, Vaccination and Control Measures". In this work we define a modified SEIR model that accounts for the spread of infection during the latent period, infections from asymptomatic or pauci-symptomatic infected individuals, potential loss of acquired immunity, people’s increasing awareness of social distancing and the use of vaccination as well as non-pharmaceutical interventions like social confinement. We estimate model parameters in three different scenarios - in Italy, where there is a growing number of cases and re-emergence of the epidemic, in India, where there are significant number of cases post confinement period and in Victoria, Australia where a re-emergence has been controlled with severe social confinement program. Our result shows the benefit of long term confinement of 50% or above population and extensive testing. With respect to loss of acquired immunity, our model suggests higher impact for Italy. We also show that a reasonably effective vaccine with mass vaccination program can be successful in significantly controlling the size of infected population. We show that for India, a reduction in contact rate by 50% compared to a reduction of 10% in the current stage can reduce death from 0.0268% to 0.0141% of population. Similarly, for Italy we show that reducing contact rate by half can reduce a potential peak infection of 15% population to less than 1.5% of population, and potential deaths from 0.48% to 0.04%. With respect to vaccination, we show that even a 75% efficient vaccine administered to 50% population can reduce the peak number of infected population by nearly 50% in Italy. Similarly, for India, a 0.056% of population would die without vaccination, while 93.75% efficient vaccine given to 30\% population would bring this down to 0.036% of population, and 93.75% efficient vaccine given to 70% population would bring this down to 0.034%.

This is a historical data record of the Victorian Wastewater testing program. Data contains results from October 2022.\r \r Testing of wastewater can show if SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID-19 – is present in a geographical area or population.\r \r Victoria conducts wastewater surveillance and uses testing results with other health data as part of our COVID-19 response.\r People who have or have recently had COVID-19 may shed fragments of the virus. These fragments can enter wastewater through toilets, bowls, sinks and drains. This viral shedding may come from different sources such as used tissues, off hands and skin, or in stools. This shedding may last for a number of weeks beyond when a person is infectious.\r \r Samples of wastewater are collected from treatment plants and in the sewer network, both in metropolitan and regional locations. These samples are analysed for fragments of coronavirus.\r \r If viral fragments are detected in the wastewater of an area where there have not been recent COVID-19 cases, local communities can be more vigilant, promptly seek clinical testing if symptomatic, and practise COVID-safe behaviours with increased vigilance.\r

As of August 22, 2022, over 80 percent of adults in Western Australia had been vaccinated with three doses of a COVID-19 vaccine. In comparison, less than 60 percent of Queensland population aged 16 years and over and received three doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.