Australian COVID-19 deaths likely to hit only several hundred: expert

A mathematical model developed by QUT, believed to be one of the most accurate so far, suggests Australia will end up with well under 1000 coronavirus deaths.

Well under 1000 Australians will die from coronavirus by the end of this year, a more accurate mathematical model of its spread predicts.

The model, developed by a QUT team led by physician and mathematician Dan Nicolau, also backs up the State Government’s decision on the weekend to start easing restrictions.

Prof Nicolau and his colleague Alex Hasson, predicted a final death toll in Britain of about 35,000, about 75,000 in the US.

But Australia probably would peak at only “several hundreds’’ by the end of the year, barring a major future outbreak.

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“This data suggests it could even now be time for local, state and federal governments to actively be thinking about a disciplined plan to loosen restrictions,” he said.

“The development of models like this to understand and predict the course of COVID-19, and other epidemics to come, is vital for us to be able to understand what public health measures, like home isolation and closing borders, to deploy and when, and when life can start to return to normal.’’

Prof Nicolau said their model was a more accurate way to predict the trajectory of the virus and its mortality, based on reliable data which looked at the ratio of known infections to recoveries in each country.

The team then compared this ratio with the number of reported daily deaths in each country.

Predictions for many countries, updated daily, are available at covidwave.org

The data showed the same patterns in most countries, including Australia, and showed most were now into their second wave of infection.

“Many other models to predict and alter the course of the virus have been developed, but most depend on numerous, untested assumptions, and their predictions vary wildly,’’ Prof Nicolau said.

“Our model does not do that, relying instead on more reliable, empirical (scientifically validated) data.

Their findings are under review at the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine.

QUT's Professor Dan Nicolau has developed an improved model for coronavirus.

“The ratio of known COVID-19 cases to recovered patients will always go to nearly 1:1 over time, because most patients recover,’’ Prof Nicolau said.

“So, that tells us when the worst has passed – if more people are recovering than are getting sick, things are looking up— at least for now.

“Mortality rates from COVID, while high for a respiratory virus, are actually low - in Australia, we are looking at less than one in 1000.

“Almost everyone who gets it recovers after about two weeks.

“And since it – unfortunately – is about 10 days from illness to death in the minority of patients who do die, it turns out that the peak of the fatalities lags that peak in the recovery curves by about 20 to 30 days.”

University of Oxford Professor Mona Bafadhel, a respiratory physician who co-authored the study with Prof Nicolau, said their data also suggested the virus was quietly spreading across the world weeks before the authorities reacted.