Victoria may have to live with inevitable coronavirus outbreaks
The state may have to live with inevitable coronavirus outbreaks, with Victoria set to make “a wicked decision” in the next week. Top epidemiologist Tony Blakely says the mental health and economic harms caused by stage four restrictions must be balanced against the risk of future coronavirus waves.
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Victoria may have to accept, and learn to live with, inevitable coronavirus outbreaks if its citizens are to be free to “halfway live again”.
That’s the view of Melbourne University epidemiologist and public health specialist Tony Blakely, whose research was used by the state government to justify its extended lockdown.
Professor Blakely said there was “a wicked decision” to be made in the next week as to how the mental health and economic harms caused by Melbourne’s stage four restrictions were balanced against the risk of future coronavirus waves.
“We’re going to need to get smart and somehow find ways of loosening up things that are priorities for us, but don’t actually give the virus too much room to move,” Prof Blakely said.
“For example, encouraging people to stay in their bubbles but opening up, or getting rid of, the 5km rule so that we can at least go to the Dandenongs for a walk … things we can do that give us as citizens and human beings, some sense that we are halfway living again.”
It was inevitable COVID-19 would stick around and the state would have to move in and out of different level restrictions as outbreaks “yo-yoed”, if the virus was to be suppressed until a vaccine was rolled out, he said.
Top-level contract tracing was vital in “taking the edge off the yoyos”, Dr Blakely added, in a thinly-veiled swipe at the state government’s previous efforts.
“We can’t really ask for God to help us but we can ask for contact tracing to help us. So we really hope, we assume that, the contact tracing has improved dramatically … and that’s everything about it,” Prof Blakely said.
To keep the state at between 10 or 20 coronavirus cases per day until a vaccine arrived, involved “some form of living with the virus”, he said.
“It won’t be perfect, it will be bumpy as hell, but the idea is to make the bumps less steep,” Prof Blakely said, adding Victoria was “in the stubborn tail” of its second COVID-19 wave, having plateaued at an average of 10 cases per day.
Seeing case numbers back up at 12 on Sunday was concerning but it was too early to say what that meant, he said.
However, Prof Blakely said he feared it could mean “we won’t be opening up as much as what we anticipated (on October 19), which is a real shame and, as much as any other Victorian, it really pisses me off too”.
Modelling indicated that at five cases per day, there was a three per cent chance of a third coronavirus wave or a serious outbreak before Christmas, and at 10 per day, a ten per cent chance, he said.
“So it depends to some extent on the risk you’re prepared to take … from the models we’re running we know it’s very hard to stop the yoyo effect. … learning to live with the virus is not going to look like holding it magically at 10 per day from now until there’s a vaccine,” he said.
Last month Prof Blakely said the target for the most substantial easing of restrictions — an average of fewer than five daily coronavirus cases across two weeks — was too tough.
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