Government plays down COVID modelling
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Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly has played down modelling showing up to 200,000 daily COVID-19 cases are a possibility in the absence of tighter restrictions.
He labelled media reports of the Doherty Institute modelling – prepared for federal, state and territory leaders ahead of Wednesday’s national cabinet – misleading.
It showed up to 200,000 daily cases was possible across the country by late January or early February unless states and territories beefed up public health measures.
Professor Kelly stressed this was the worst case of all possible scenarios. It included assumptions such as the Omicron variant being as severe as Delta.
Other assumptions factored into the figure included a highly limited booster program, lack of hospital surge capacity and no changes to public health measures.
“None of these five assumptions represent the likely state of events, let alone all of them together,” Professor Kelly said.
“Presenting that scenario as the likely scenario that will occur is highly misleading.”
He pointed out worst case scenario modelling in 2020 around the number of intensive care beds required was never realised.
“While modelling is an important tool to help guide decision-making, it is just one of a range of tools and cannot be viewed in isolation,” Professor Kelly said.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison also said it was very unlikely Australia would reach 200,000 new daily cases.
“(It’s an) extreme case scenario that assumes that nobody does anything, nobody gets boosters, there are no changes that take place, no one exercises commonsense,” he told the Seven Network.
But the Australian Medical Association said the Doherty Institute’s modelling throughout the pandemic had been pretty on the mark.
“I’m confident in the numbers,” vice president Chris Moy told the Nine Network.
“The million dollar question is … how many people are going to end up in hospital and in intensive care wards.”
National cabinet is set to discuss mask requirements indoors and advice about whether three jabs will be required for someone to be considered fully vaccinated.
The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation is considering bringing boosters forward from the current five month interval.
About 1.5 million people have received a booster shot out of an eligible group of around 3.1 million.
Mr Morrison called on states to ramp up their booster programs.
His office cited an overall decline in state government vaccine hubs from 957 to 699 between November and December.
The prime minister also said pre-testing requirements for interstate travel were clogging up clinics, particularly in NSW and Victoria.
“That’s resources that can be also going towards supporting these vaccine hubs. And so we need to work through some of those issues as well today,” he told the Nine Network.
The national double-dose vaccination rate for people aged 16 and older has surpassed 90 per cent.
NSW reported 3057 new infections and two more deaths on Tuesday, while Victoria recorded 1245 new cases alongside six additional deaths.
Meanwhile, South Australia reported 154 new infections, Queensland 86, the ACT 16, the Northern Territory 14 and Tasmania four.
