Covid NSW: Briefings to focus on transmission factors and not case figures

A Covid briefings proposal would reframe outbreaks by looking at the number of unknown coronavirus cases and those infectious in the community rather than overall transmissions.

The state may soon adopt a new way of talking about coronavirus cases, moving away from raw numbers to focus on those with no known connection to existing cases and those not in isolation while infectious.

And if numbers of unknown Covid cases and those infectious in the community remain low, Sydney could see lockdown restrictions start to ease on Friday as hoped.

According to the recommendations of a draft proposal seen by The Daily Telegraph, officials would reframe the way Covid numbers are reported “to more accurately represent risk to community transmission”.

The document also calls for a proposed “restriction framework” that would see a rolling three-day average of five or fewer mystery cases, and 10 or fewer cases not in insolation while infectious, classed as a “low risk” situation for the state.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian giving her Covid-19 briefing on Sunday.

However, these thresholds would then be reviewed monthly as more people in the state received their first and second jabs.

On Sunday, Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced that there were three out of 16 new cases which had been infectious in the community, while just two of the new cases had not yet been linked to previously confirmed cases.

Were these numbers to hold for five days, then the overall risk to the community would be considered “low”, according to the approach.

And in a sign the state’s vaccination efforts may soon pay off in terms of a potential end to future lockdowns, the document recommends that stay-at-home orders would only apply in the highest risk scenarios, when the danger was considered “extreme”.

Noting that 2.2 million vaccine doses had been administered in NSW already, and that the state had the capacity to treat 2000 Covid patients on ventilators if required, the document says that as jabs increase, lockdowns could become a thing of the past.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard addressing the media during the Covid-19 press conference in Sydney. Picture: Bianca De Marchi

“As the levels of vaccinations in NSW increase, it should be possible to completely eliminate the use of stay-at-home orders, albeit with some other forms of restrictions potentially being applied,” the draft paper reads.

The plan potentially signals that the state is moving in the direction of the second phase of the four phase road map out of the pandemic unveiled by Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Friday, when he said that in the “post-vaccination” phase, “lockdowns would only occur in extreme circumstances to prevent escalating hospitalisation and fatality”.

NSW would also be taking the lead from commonwealth chief medical officer Paul Kelly, who said that as the vaccine was rolled out, it would make more sense to “concentrate increasingly on severe illness rather than numbers of cases”.