Western Australia Covid case surges

“Are we there yet?”

For weeks now we’ve been reporting that it’s “looming”, and yet it’s still not here. Trying to pick the crest of the wave while you’re in it is almost impossible, but by looking at the overall trajectory, and a few other measures, we can see where the state is at. It all suggests while WA is not at its peak yet, it’s likely just around the corner – for real this time (we think).

Sure, so when will cases actually peak?

Unfortunately, without a crystal ball we can’t answer the million-dollar question with a high degree of confidence. A big part of the issue is that understanding what’s happening with the virus depends entirely on testing and reporting.

If a person gets COVID on Friday but doesn’t get tested until Monday because they have plans for the weekend, that doesn’t change the spread of the virus, just how it’s represented in our data.

Ultimately, it means after a record day of 9,754 new cases on Wednesday, we’ll have to wait until around that time this week to have the best idea of how things are tracking.

Of course, these figures are only the cases we know of. With rising infection rates in the community, there is an expectation more people have the virus but are asymptomatic, aren’t getting tested, or aren’t reporting positive RATs.

Do case numbers really matter though?

Increasingly the Premier has been telling us that hospitalisation and ICU admissions are the key figures to watch, and that’s true to an extent.

Together with deaths they are the key indicators of how severe the Omicron wave is.

In part, that’s why we at the ABC have changed our reporting over the last week – placing greater emphasis on those figures and being less inclined to simply report each day’s case numbers without more context.

But case numbers are still important because they can help show the impact of the virus on people’s day-to-day lives.

More cases mean more people at risk of being left with long COVID, and each infection places that person, and all of their close contacts, into isolation with everything that flows from being stuck at home for a week.

Will the easing of restrictions this week mean we’ll have more cases for longer?

In his advice to the Premier about the easing of restrictions earlier this week, Chief Health Officer Andy Robertson did warn the current approach “may have the effect of increasing cases and hospitalisations”.

Professor Clements said it may also mean that infections don’t go down as quickly as they would have otherwise.

But he said because the restrictions impact different groups in different ways, rising case numbers won’t necessarily have a direct impact on the number of people who end up seriously ill or dying from the virus.

What happens next?

The general attitude seems to be that where other states are seeing cases climb because of easing restrictions and the more transmissible BA.2 variant, WA likely won’t see the same.

But after the peak, and eventual fall, cases will inevitably rise again. That’s likely to coincide with winter, in part because we spend more time inside, but also because of the nature of the virus.

There have been suggestions the current spread of Omicron, and the natural immunity created by infection, will provide some protection against whatever comes next. But that will depend though on what future variants of COVID look like – and how governments decide to manage them.