COVID-19 TRENDS AND INSIGHTS REPORT 28 October 2022

Executive summary
Overall, key measures of infection (levels of viral RNA in wastewater and reported case
rates) used to monitor the COVID-19 epidemic have been increasing after two months
of decline since the July peak. Following a similar trend to case rates, after previously
decreasing substantially, hospital admission and occupancy rates have also started to
increase. Meanwhile, mortality counts have continued to decrease; however, both
measures (hospital admission and mortality rates) lag behind changes in infection
rates.

BA.5 was the dominant subvariant accounting for an estimated 84% of cases, with the
proportion of BA.5 declining slowly over the previous weeks, as proportions of several
other subvariants increase, both in WGS (whole genome sequencing) and wastewater.

Over the next fortnight, it is probable that cases, hospitalisations and mortality will
continue to increase. It is still uncertain, at this stage, what impact new variants of
concern in the community will have on overall infections, hospitalisations and
mortality.

The report can be found here.