In the last two weeks, Australia has gone from having one of the lowest rates of new Covid cases per million population in the world to one of the highest. Most of these new cases are in NSW and according to the Guardian today, if NSW were a country it would be in the top 10 for new cases notified per million population.

The plot below shows my selection of European countries plus USA and Australia. Australia for the first time is now in with the crowd, currently sitting between the rate for Germany and the Netherlands. I’ve also added the 7-day rolling average for NSW to 30 December, which puts it between Switzerland and the USA.  Based on the daily new cases reported for NSW today (31 December, https://covidlive.com.au/nsw), the NSW rate has jumped to 2,580 per million today. Figures for today are not yet available for Northern hemisphere countries, but I suspect NSW rate has jumped above all the countries in the plot except Denmark and possibly the UK.

The good news is that hospitalizations and deaths remain low compared to previous waves, and the booster dramatically lowers Covid risk.