Meaningless or easing – what’s the deal with COVID?

THERE’S no doubt that the number of active cases of COVID-19 is easing across Gippsland.

That’s good, right?

But do the figures really mean anything anymore with so few PCR tests, just 30,726 PCR tests were processed on Monday this week in Victoria, reported on Tuesday.

Victoria was notified of 14,836 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday. This includes:

• 8,539 who tested positive on a Rapid Antigen Test
• 6,297 who returned a positive result on a PCR test.

Perhaps the better numbers now are the hospitalisations and sadly, the deaths . There are 1057 COVID-19 cases in hospital in Victoria – with 82 active cases and 37 cleared cases in ICU, including 47 on a ventilator.

The Department was notified yesterday of 29 deaths of people aged in their 30s, 70s, 80s and 90s. 12 of these deaths occurred during the last two days. This brings the total number of deaths in Victoria since the pandemic began to 1850.

Locally, there are 2462 active cases in Gippsland, well down on the 3000-plus we saw only a week ago. The distribution of cases by local government area (LGA) are as follows:

• Bass Coast 339 active, 26 new
• Baw Baw 432 active, 35 new
• East Gippsland 294 active, 3 new
• Latrobe City 839 active, 26 new
• South Gippsland 207 active, 19 new
• Wellington 351 active, 2 new
• Gippsland 2462 active, 111 new

Cases by Postcode

• Mirboo North (3871): 28 active, 0 new
• Cowes (3922): 73 active 4 new
• San Remo/Cape Woolamai (3925): 41 active 2 new
• Korumburra (3950) 24 active 4 new
• Leongatha (3953): 42 active 4 new
• Fish Creek (3959): 4 active 0 new
• Foster (3960): 40 active 6 new
• Corinella (3984): 36 active 7 new
• Nyora (3987): 7 active 0 new
• Wonthaggi (3995): 112 active 8 new
• Inverloch (3996): 74 active 6 new

There are 183,154 active cases in Victoria.

A total of 32.6 per cent of Victorians aged 18 and over have had three doses of a COVID-19 vaccine. 93.4 per cent of Victorians aged 12 and over have had two doses.