Epidemiologists warn Victoria’s outbreak is now accelerating quickly and is set to overtake NSW unless vaccination uptake and lockdown compliance improve.
The COVID-19 Delta outbreak is growing faster in Victoria than NSW despite the faster and harder lockdown in Victoria, which also started its outbreak with higher vaccination coverage.
“Sydney always took a more of a nutcracker approach, but that didn’t work when it came to Delta,” she said. However, Professor Adrian Esterman, an epidemiologist from the University of South Australia, points out South Australia and Northern Territory have both managed to quash Delta outbreaks. He says NSW was far too late with its lockdown.
Sydney and Melbourne are not identical cities, but they are a similar size and have similar demographics. Sydney has more dense population centres outside the CBD, which is a disadvantage in fighting the virus. The main difference was that the NSW government initially tried to squash Delta with localised restrictions and contact tracing and did not send Greater Sydney into full lockdown until 11 days after the first case. Restrictions such as curfews in certain areas, a statewide outdoor mask mandate and further retail closures have been progressively added amid complaints Sydney was in a “lockdown lite” or “mockdown”.
NSW reached a rolling three-day average of 20.3 daily cases on June 26 and 31 days later reached 153.3. After doughnut day Victoria reached 21 on August 12 and 31 days later is at 369.
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