We are seeing a lot of cases, we know that right around Australia, even in WA, there are some cases now, [though] much less than in other states. That time will come. At the moment, 1.15 million cases reported since the beginning of the year. We are still in January. That has led, as we know, to a number of hospitalisations …
We expected to see a lot of cases in this wave. And we have. This is because the high transmissibility of the virus and we have certainly seen that. We did say and … I continue to stand by the fact that this is a much less severe type of the virus than previous waves. When you get such high caseloads, you have, unfortunately, some people that are experiencing severe disease.
The pattern we have seen all the way through the pandemic remains the same, though. We are seeing younger people in hospital because there are a large number of cases in younger people. In terms of intensive care, it remains very rare. Only about 0.1% overall needing to be admitted to ICU.
It is a very much lower rate than what we have seen throughout the rest of the pandemic. Similarly with the death rate, it is about that 0.1%. One in a thousand. That is much less for younger people. The rate of death increases with age.