Age distribution of NZ cases, travel history and time sequence for 23 Mar - 13 Apr.

[mod Tech]

​​​​​Age distribution of confirmed cases in New Zealand (https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/...-current-cases). Almost all of the cases are travel related or associated with travelers but does include two confirmed community transmissions.

This reflects the ages of travelers in New Zealand and will likely change as the disease progresses. The numbers may include tourists in the country, many of whom ignored instructions to self-isolate and therefore pose a heightened risk of initiating community spread.

 

[mod Tech]

Here is an updated chart of the confirmed cases in New Zealand. Our MoH is now reporting both confirmed and suspected cases. Suspected cases have symptoms but negative This set includes our first 4 confirmed community spread cases. These are the cases which triggered our going from a "be careful" state to a full lock down state, although ours is not as restrictive as those in China or Italy. We won't be getting the army or armed police unless the population fails to cooperate. At this stage we still have supermarkets and petrol stations open and we can move around a bit, but not interact. As our population is a lot less dense than either Italy or China, we may get away with this.

It is interesting that the distribution is starting to fill in with growth in the 30s and 50s groups. We also have our first case in an aged care facility which is possibly the case in their 80s. As we have seen in the US, cases in aged care facilities are quite devastating. However, at this stage we still have no cases in ICU and only 6 in hospital. We have also had 12 recoveries so far so the situation is relatively good right now.

 

[mod Tech]

Here are today's numbers. Today the update was at 14:00 which is much earlier than the last couple of days, which is a really good sign. The total count has gone up by 50 to 202 total cases and 189 confirmed cases. Once again I have charted only the confirmed cases as the criteria for probable cases is that they have the symptoms but test negative, which, given that the symptoms are shared by other diseases makes them very unreliable.We also now have 22 recovered and 6 in hospital, none in ICU.

All but 4 cases are still travel related (travelers or contact with travelers) so community spread is still appears to not be wide spread. The growth in cases is also not as high as we might expect for community spread.

Interesting in this chart compared with yesterday is the growth in the 20s age group. This suggests that the last home were the younger travelers and perhaps that they were less careful before they got home. This would tend to match with behavior seen in other countries.

 

[mod Tech]

Sadly the Ministry of Health has decided to stop releasing the case summary so I can't do the age distributions any more. The only breakdown is by general geographic area now. Today we have 262 confirmed cases and 21 suspected cases so a climb of 73 cases in the past 24 hrs. There appear to be a number of clusters and more suspected community spread cases although the confirmed community cases are still at 4. We also have a 7th hospitalised case and 27 recovered cases, still no ICU cases.

 

[mod Tech]

Further to yesterday's post, the MoH has now posted confirmed numbers for 26 Mar which I present here. The 20s age group is definitely on the rise and is now the largest group.

Today's briefing had us at 368 total cases and they are now charting by age group for total cases (confirmed and probable) here https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/...-current-cases as well as mapping by DHB (District Health Board) area.

There are currently 8 cases in Hospital and we now have one in ICU. 37 cases have recovered with no deaths. We still have 4 confirmed community transmissions but likely more; the vast majority of cases are still travel related or associated.

 

[mod Tech]

Yesterdays update (28 Mar) shows continued growth in the 20-29 age group relative to other groups and again the bulk of the cases are travel related or associated. We are also getting a steady stream of recoveries. Hospitalization is still rare, under 2 %.

 

[mod Tech]

The chart below again shows strong growth in the 20-29 age group and that the 30-39 group are catching up. This shows that the suggestion that younger people are not affected by the disease is not entirely accurate. While the numbers are still heavily influenced by travel we are seeing increasing numbers of cases from contact with travelers rather than actual travelers.

Note that in this graph the first 4 columns are not 10 year divisions but 1 and then 5 year groups.

 

[mod Tech]

New charts for New Zealand for 30 Mar 2020. This time the MoH has provided travel status information so I've done charts for three possible conditions; Overseas, not overseas and unspecified, which may be overseas travel, but no flight details yet.

In summary, we now have 552 confirmed cases, 12 in hospital, one death and 63 recovered cases.

While the overall chart for cases shows pretty much the same trend as previous days, the breakdown by travel history is quite interesting as it shows that the majority of the 20-29 cases are from overseas, the other age groups are a mix which may indicate that many of the older cases were from contact with returning younger travelers. It is also encouraging as it does NOT suggest that our younger citizens are ignoring the physical isolation instructions, except in isolated cases.

One glaring example to the contrary is a Catholic school where we have our biggest cluster of 47 cases and where the students were rumored to be ignoring the self isolation instructions and continuing to congregate and mix.All adults and students of this school together with their parents are now likely infected and this cluster is likely to grow rapidly in the coming week.

 

[mod Tech]

The summary of our position as at 1st of April is as follows:

Number of confirmed cases in New Zealand	647	47
Number of probable cases	61	14
Number of confirmed and probable cases	708	61
Number of cases in hospital	16	-
Number of recovered cases	82	8
Number of deaths	1

The charts for the 1st are below.

You will notice that the Unknown case has gone, which I assume means the age was determined and the case was re-assigned. Oddly we have also lost the one infant case (<1 year) for which i have no explanation, perhaps an error in previous data.

There isn't a whole lot to say about these charts. The dominance of the 20-29 age group in the overseas travel group continues while changes in the distribution of the other two probably represents re-assignment of cases from the unknown group to one of the other two. Overall, overseas travel still accounts for over half of our cases.

 

[mod Tech]

Here are the charts from 3 April 2020. Unfortunately I don't have the summary info for the 3rd as the source web site was updated before I copied it. The charts are pretty much a continuation of previous trends except that the MoH has now distinguished between domestic cases, overseas travel cases and cases with unknown travel history.

The above chart shows cases who's travel has not been classified. The 20-29 peak suggests there are a fair number of overseas cases in this set. The following chart suggests that a good number of overseas cases have also been missed.

The final two charts are very strongly indicative of the presence of local transmission as the domestic cases are peaking in the 40-50 age group with a fairly normal distribution while the overseas cases are very strongly 20-29 biased. I would expect this to get more pronounced as the NZ citizens still overseas are heavily represented by the 20-29 age group.

 

[mod Tech]

Here are the charts and summary for New Zealand for 4 April 2020. There has been no update for the 5th so far.

Summary

Number of confirmed cases in New Zealand	824	52
Number of probable cases	126	30
Number of confirmed and probable cases	950	82
Number of cases in hospital	10
Number of recovered cases	127	24
Number of deaths	1

Of these 420 are from overseas and 293 are domestic so cases continue to be dominated by Overseas travel and the overseas travelers continue to be dominated by those in the 20-29 age group. Having said that we are now at the stage where half our cases are from overseas so it looks like we are moving towards a new phase of our COVID-19 event. We are also seeing our numbers returning from overseas dropping due to the increasing difficulty of finding an aeroplane still flying.

The Ministry of Health has also changed the criteria for testing from one which required contact with or association with overseas travel to one where you simply require some of the symptoms, mainly a dry cough (notably you don't need to have an elevated temperature). It is expected that this will increase the number of local cases dramatically, but the country has also more than tripled the testing capacity in the past two weeks so there is now the capacity to test more local cases.

At this point our number of confirmed cases has been growing linearly rather than exponentially, which at least suggests the physical distancing requirements are having an impact, although the restricted testing criteria will have affected things. I expect the numbers from early next week will give a much clearer picture as samples collected in the past few days return results.

Cases with no assigned travel history seem to have been combined with cases with unknown travel in this data set.

 

[mod Tech]

Now that we have been in an active phase of the COVID-19 event in New Zealand for over a week and we have some more details on cases I thought a time series graph of cases might be interesting. This one looks at travel status over time together with overall numbers.

The interesting thing is that we are still not seeing exponential growth in cases. It is also interesting that the number of overseas cases is gradually flattening as the domestic cases move up.
The unassigned line is fairly flat as existing cases are tracked down and new ones are added. This really represents the progress of contact tracing.

Our cases have been climbing in a pretty linear fashion since the numbers started to climb rapidly. This coincided with a mass return of New Zealanders from overseas.

I have also added the age group charts for today below. Not much to say, they are continuing the trends already noted, particularly the dominance of the 20-29 age group in overseas cases. In terms of the domestic cases one might almost think it is the 40-49 age group who are having the most trouble complying with the isolation rules.

 

[Andre DuMouchel]

Thank You for making the effort, watching the numbers change as more data becomes available is worthwhile.

 

[mod Tech]

Today's update from the Ministry, charted by age group and travel history.


Summary

Number of confirmed cases in New Zealand	911	39
Number of probable cases	195	28
Number of confirmed and probable cases	1106	67
Number of cases in hospital	13
Number of recovered cases	176	20
Number of deaths	1

Our case count continues on an essentially linear progression indicating continued control of spread. We are seeing an increasing number of clusters (12 today) and they are growing in size, which means community spread is happening, but still not at a great rate. Age related breakdowns below show the same trends as in previous days.

 

[mod Tech]

More of the same today. Numbers continue in a mostly linear fashion, with a slight reduction in growth. More significantly the growth is mostly from new cases in existing clusters, which means wide spread community transmission is not showing up at the moment.

The summary figures are:

Summary

Number of confirmed cases in New Zealand	943	32
Number of probable cases	217	22
Number of confirmed and probable cases	1160	54
Number of cases in hospital	12
Number of recovered cases	241	65
Number of deaths	1

The progression of cases shows a continued transition from imported cases to domestic cases, although these are mostly associated with existing clusters.

 

[mod Tech]

Data for today. Our cases continue to be flat or slightly falling. This is partly due to the fall off in new arrivals from overseas and possibly because there is relatively little community spread. Todays summary is below.

Summary

Number of confirmed cases in New Zealand	969	26
Number of probable cases	241	24
Number of confirmed and probable cases	1210	50
Number of cases in hospital	12
Number of recovered cases	282	41
Number of deaths	1

Of our hospitalised cases four are in ICU and two are critical.

The progression graph is interesting as it shows the flattening off of the Overseas cases and the overall case count, but the domestic cases continue to climb at a steady rate. We are told that almost all those cases are in known clusters, but that still leaves a few "on the loose". Having said that, we are now over 4000 tests per day but the confirmed cases per day continues to drop, so there is cause for hope that the rates will not take off in the next two weeks.

The overall chart continues much the same as yesterday. The main change is that of the Domestic cases are starting to show a more even distribution across the adult age groups.

The unassigned chart includes cases which the MoH defined as "Unknown" today, but as this category comes and goes and the total of un-assigned and Unknown cases remains almost the same for days where there is no distinction, I think this is just an inconsistency in reporting.

---

 

[mod Tech]

Here are the charts and progress graph for the 9th of April. There is a discrepancy in the numbers between the summary, where 992 confirmed cases are reported and the detailed data where there are only 990 case details. I have not had a response on which way the error lies. Obviously the graph and charts are taking the 990 number as that is all the data I have.

The big news today was that no one entering the country will be self isolating at home anymore. They will either be in quarantine if they have symptoms or managed isolation if not. What this means is that all travelers will be held by the government for at least 14 days prior to release into the community. Those with symptoms must stay in their rooms, others may move around the facility but not interact with others. The government is using hotels for this purpose and is providing meals and accommodation at no cost to the occupants.

Summary

Number of confirmed cases in New Zealand	992*	23
Number of probable cases	247	6
Number of confirmed and probable cases	1239	29
Number of cases in hospital	14	2
Number of recovered cases	317	35
Number of deaths	1

Of our hospitalised cases four are in ICU and two are critical.

In terms of our progression over time the overall rate of increase is dropping, but the interesting thing is that the domestic cases continues to climb at a steady rate as the overseas cases drop off. The drop in overseas cases is because the number of people returning from overseas is also dropping and the border controls are tightening ( we now have over 1000 in managed isolation or quarantine). It is also important to remember that there are nearly 100 cases where travel history has not been determined and these could affect the numbers significantly.

This suggests that the strict contact restrictions are controlling, but not preventing the spread of COVID-19. As long as this continues at a rate which our medical system can cope with that will be fine, but it does not auger well for a reduction in movement and contact restrictions any time soon. Indeed we have been told there will be no early lifting of restrictions, so there is still a week and a half to see a drop in the rate of domestic spread.

Our 20-29 age group continues to show significant dominance in the overseas cases but also a significant growth in the domestic cases, now nearly matching the other age groups. Strongest domestic growth is in the 50-59 age group, which may represent their involvement in essential services and hence continued close contact outside their isolation "bubble" as our term has it.

 

[mod Tech]

Data for Friday 10th April. We are now well past the halfway point of our initial 4 week isolation. We had our second death reported today, an elderly person from a dementia care facility with co-morbidity. Otherwise no real change in the progress. Domestic cases continue to rise in a linear fashion while overseas cases tail off as the number of returning residents reduces.

Today's' summary figures:

Summary

Number of confirmed cases in New Zealand	1015	23
Number of probable cases	268	21
Number of confirmed and probable cases	1283	44
Number of cases in hospital	16	2
Number of recovered cases	373	56
Number of deaths	2	1

Of our hospitalised cases five are in ICU and two are critical.


I would expect the number of Domestic cases to pass the Overseas ones in the next few days.

 

[mod Tech]

Graph and charts for Saturday 11 April 2020. Today we had another 2 deaths, both elderly. So far all our deaths have been over 70.

Summary is:

Summary

Number of confirmed cases in New Zealand	1035	20
Number of probable cases	277	9
Number of confirmed and probable cases	1312	29
Number of cases in hospital	15	-1
Number of recovered cases	422	49
Number of deaths	4	2

Of our hospitalised cases four are in ICU and one is critical.

All the graphs show a continuation of the trends noted to date. It is likely we will see a small step up in overseas cases as the 13 NZ passengers from the Greg Mortimer cruise ship return home. The work of travel history identification continues to slowly reduce the number of unassigned cases.

 

[mod Tech]

Graph and charts for Sunday 12 April 2020.

Summary is:

Summary

Number of confirmed cases in New Zealand	1049	14
Number of probable cases	281	4
Number of confirmed and probable cases	1330	18
Number of cases in hospital	14	-1
Number of recovered cases	471	49
Number of deaths	4	0

Of our hospitalised cases 5 are in ICU and one is critical.