Analysis: prediction of 200,000 cases a day in Australia is just one out of dozens of scenarios but presented alone it can be highly misleading
Much of the pandemic modelling to make news headlines since Covid-19 hit has depicted concerning scenarios involving high case numbers and hospitalisations.
The leaked Doherty Institute modelling projecting 200,000 cases came with an important caveat: this would only eventuate if nothing was done, including if people did not change their behaviour at all of their own accord. It also assumed no change to the pace of booster rollouts, and that only very basic restrictions, such as requiring masks in hospitals, were maintained.
Ahead of national cabinet meeting on Wednesday the chair of the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee, Prof Paul Kelly, said the 200,000 figure “presents one of the worst case of all potential scenarios including assumptions that thevariant is as severe as the Delta variant, an absence of hospital surge capacity, a highly limited booster program, no change to baseline public health and social measures and an absence of spontaneous behaviour change in the face of rising case numbers”.
Chair of biostatistics and epidemiology at the University of South Australia, Prof Adrian Esterman, said epidemiologists now model by creating individuals with certain ages, occupations, social movements and other characteristics. It’s known as agent-based modelling, and it is used by the Doherty Institute.
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