Experts at La Trobe and Deakin University say if NSW and Victoria can maintain their low rate of infections, coronavirus could die out nice and soon.
If you’ve had enough of COVID-19 ruining all the fun (except of course for The Flaming Lips gig where everyone was inside a giant bubble), this might be the best news since we recorded no cases of coronavirus in Australia last week. If NSW and Victoria can continue their trajectory of infection rates going down, Australia could be COVID-free in less than a month.
According to leading epidemiologists at Deakin and La Trobe University, 90 percent of Australia’s COVID-19 cases are contained in both New South Wales and Victoria. Given Victoria’s seventh day in a row without any detected cases yesterday, the virus could be eliminated in a few weeks. Did someone say gigs on corona island?
The chair of epidemiology at Deakin Univeristy, Catherine Bennett, says while “thin lines” of transmission are still likely, there is a possibility COVID-19 could die out when known cases are traced and contained.
“Every time we do that, we are narrowing down and getting rid of another little set of chains of transmission… Even if the virus is out there, it is more likely to die out than spread.”
Hassan Vally, an epidemiologist at La Trobe University, said that depending on how we go the next few weeks, if the virus is contained it’s a possibility COVID-19 will die out in Australia.
“NSW is the model, we have a low number of cases, the public health response stamps on any clusters and you keep everything under control… No-one knows what will happen over the next week in Victoria, but it’s not outside the bounds of possibility that we will see zero cases for another week or so and then technically we’ve eliminated the virus.”
Stay the course mates, you’re doing great!
