Why staying at home, socially distancing and wearing a mask is driving down Victoria’s coronavirus cases
Victoria’s daily coronavirus case numbers could fall below 100 in the next two weeks for the first time since early July. The experts say “single digit” figures are achievable but only if we keep doing these key things.
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Staying at home, social distancing and wearing a face mask will help Victoria’s daily coronavirus cases rapidly decline, possibly to single digits, in the next month, experts say.
However it still remains unclear when our lives will return to normal, with experts flagging the possibility of an extended lockdown and face-mask wearing periods.
La Trobe University’s Professor of Public Health Vijaya Sundararajan said Victoria was on track to see a decline in daily numbers, providing we continued to do the right thing.
“In about 10 days that number could be a little over 100 and in about two weeks it could be below 100,” Prof Sundararajan said.
Wearing a face mask in public would remain a part of our daily routine for a while, Prof Sundararajan said.
“In terms of how long do I think people will need to wear masks? It’s hard to say,” she said.
“I couldn’t imagine a future where we aren’t wearing masks for a while.”
“I do think it’s a valuable tool … to stop the spread of infection.”
Associate Professor Philip Russo, of Monash University and Cabrini Health, was hopeful Victoria would see lower double digit, or even single digit, daily case numbers in the next fortnight.
“The longer we are in stage 4, with time we expect to see these numbers go down,” Assoc Prof Russo said.
“I think we could be hopeful that we’ll go from stage 4 to 3 at the end of this six week period. When we go to stage 2 is hard to say.”
“We have seen a three-fold decrease in about three weeks, so a couple more weeks of this, providing as a community we continue to do the right thing, it will decrease at that rate and hopefully we can get down to double digits or even single digits.”
While Victoria’s daily case numbers was promising, Assoc Prof Russo said easing restrictions would be slow and closely monitored.
“Given the size of this wave and the rapid increase in cases at the start of the second wave, the lifting of restrictions will be slower,” he said.
“I can’t imagine (restrictions easing from) stage 4 to stage 2. It may even be stage 4 to stage 3.5 and then 3 and then 2.5.”
Monash University Professor of Medicine Paul Komesaroff was confident Victoria’s daily case numbers would drop ‘increasingly rapidly’ in the coming weeks, and hopeful stage 4 restrictions would ease to stage 3 after September 13.
“It is very likely the numbers will come down, increasingly rapidly, I’m confident of that,” Prof Komesaroff said.
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