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COVID and NSW

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27 Jul 2021 9:31 AM

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Reply # 10776297 on 10773065

Allen Cheng

There are several groups doing epidemiological modelling but for different purposes.

In Victoria, we used two agent based models by groups based at Burnet and Uni of Melbourne to help plan our path out of lockdown. Despite their limitations and different approaches/assumptions, they were quite helpful in exploring the potential risks associated with various opening up options. I think even the people involved would admit they were surprisingly accurate (to the day!).

https://www.burnet.edu.au/projects/467_covasim_modelling_covid_19

https://www.dhhs.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/202009/Emerging-from-lockdown-modelling-outputs-assumptions.pdf

I don't know as much about the Sydney modelling, but I'm aware that there have been discussions between at least one group and NSW Health.

Additionally, a consortium of modellers (including the Doherty group) have been estimating the effective reproductive ratio and "transmission potential" from a range of data sources, including case counts, mobility data (Apple, Google and Facebook) and community surveys of compliance. The estimates are reported in the Common Operating Picture each week.

https://www.health.gov.au/resources/collections/coronavirus-covid-19-common-operating-picture

Delta - during Melbourne's June lockdown, there was an outbreak of the delta variant centred on a primary school and the workplaces of associated families. The index cases in this outbreak (the Jervis Bay campers) were fortuitously detected while Victoria was already in lockdown due to another outbreak (with the kappa variant).

And of course, the current July lockdown in Victoria, hopefully due to end today, is a result of a delta incursion from the famous removalists from NSW and has involved more than 170 cases.

27 Jul 2021 9:11 AM

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Reply # 10776279 on 10773065

Lan Kelly

Victoria and SA are due to come out of lockdown at midnight tonight after Delta outbreaks. We'll know in a about week or so how successful they are. But the rule of thumb is the earlier the lockdown, the shorter it is.

27 Jul 2021 9:03 AM

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Reply # 10776254 on 10773065

Deleted user

Hi Ken,

Do you know what evidence there is of a successful strict lockdown to contain the delta variant?

Christoph

26 Jul 2021 12:45 PM

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Reply # 10774467 on 10773065

Ken Beath

I think they are the 3 main groups doing modelling in Australia. One of them has contracts with 2 state governments, none of which is NSW. These possibly have all simply supplied their modelling to the newspapers. Once the model is there it doesn't cost anything to run, and they are probably financed by the federal government.

I'm wondering if it is the Sydney group, which uses agent based modelling, which should make it easier to vary compliance. The main worry with agent based modelling is that there are a lot more parameters, so a lot more guesses. Where I worked we did a model for health costs and used a quite complicated model where we hoped we would eventually obtain estimates of the probabilities and costs. Never happened and model was never used. One possibility is that the government have used this model and specified very optimistic estimates for compliance and contact tracing.

The other models simply use the estimates for simple models from last years Melbourne wave, and update the parameters for Delta and for differences in the lockdown. Based on overseas experience there is no possibility of controlling a Delta epidemic with anything but a strict lockdown.