Exclusive: Waiting another to introduce border closures and social distancing measuring could have led to a five-fold increase in Australia’s current infections, new modelling shows | Kaubo
Australia’s COVID-19 restrictions came just in time to avert disaster, with new modelling showing waiting just one more week risked infections ballooning to 35,000.
Mortality rates, hospitalisations and ICU admissions would rise by the same magnitude, said study author Professor Ian Marschner at the University of Sydney’s Faculty of Medicine and NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre.The death toll that currently stands at 103 could instead have been over 500. On Sunday, the national tally of confirmed cases was 7185.
Professor James McCaw, infectious diseases epidemiologist at the University of Melbourne and a member of the pandemic modelling group advising the National Cabinet, said Professor Marschner’s work confirmed much of their own. “I have absolute certainty that if we had not been able to act as early as we did, that is what would have occurred,” Professor McCaw said.
While the focus of COVID-19 daily reporting has been the new confirmed COVID-19 cases, the incubation period of the virus meant people were likely infected between five and 14 days before a case is detected and reported. ‘Back-projection’ can also project forward to provide short-term forecasts on what could have been, he said.
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