The Spike, Australia

In March of 2020, the world came to a screeching halt - but not Australia. The COVID-19 pandemic has taken upwards of 800,000 lives in the United States alone, and just under six million people worldwide. Surprisingly, Australia has lagged behind in terms of total cases and overall death toll on the continent. In fact, in all of 2020, Australia’s seven day average never peaked over 1,000, while the U.S. at times had over a 100,000 seven day average. It is safe to say that Australia was relatively COVID-safe throughout 2020 and 2021, but that is all about to change. In January of 2022 Australia's seven day average skyrocketed into the 10,000’s and eventually into the 100,000’s.

Australia was then hit hard with a “Do not travel” warning from the United States. There is a cocktail of reasons for why this surge happened. For starters, the Omicron variant was identified in Australia around the time of the spike, and supply chain shortages have chipped away at their testing regime. Plus, because of the lack of COVID tests, people have resorted to unreliable home testing kits as a substitute. In conclusion, Australia has recently plunged into a downward spiral in COVID cases due to a combination of various reasons, but there is hope as more tests are being rolled out to the people and an overall increase in vaccinations across the continent.