Epidemiologist mapping when Victoria will hit single digit daily coronavirus cases

An expert mapping COVID-19 trends predicts exactly when Victoria will have less than 10 new daily cases and it might be sooner than you think.

New coronavirus cases in Victoria continue their downward trend over the all-important 7-day average, and experts say that if the trend continues Victoria could get out of stage four restrictions in just a few short weeks.

There were 148 new cases in Victoria on Tuesday, a slight rise on the 116 new cases on Monday.

An epidemiologist who has been watching the numbers closely says they are exactly where they need to be.

Professor Adrian Esterman from the University of South Australia tweeted on Monday that 116 new cases “fits beautifully” on his trend line for the state.

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WELL DONE VICTORIA! 116 news cases today, which fits beautifully on my trend line. Effective reproduction number down to 0.7 again. Should be down to 100 cases or less by next weekend. The end is in sight.

— Professor Adrian Esterman (@profesterman) August 23, 2020

On Tuesday, he shared a graph courtesy of covid19data.com showing the basic reproduction number of the virus in Victoria has dropped below 0.7, meaning one active case on average infects less than one other person.

He wrote that he is “still predicting 100 or less daily cases in Victoria by next weekend, and down to single digits the week after” but it came with a caution.

Another 148 cases overnight in Victoria. A bit higher than yesterday, but still nice downward trend with Reff now below 0.7 at 0.68. Here is the chart. pic.twitter.com/yVRL2yaS35

— Professor Adrian Esterman (@profesterman) August 24, 2020

Still predicting 100 or less daily cases in Victoria by next weekend, and down to single digits the week after. However, will need to get infections in nursing homes and healthcare workers under control.

— Professor Adrian Esterman (@profesterman) August 25, 2020

Prof Esterman told news.com.au on Monday that 116 new cases was “welcome news” that “falls exactly on my 5-day trend line”.

“I forecast last week that we would be down to 100 cases by next weekend, and single digits the weekend after. Today’s number confirms this,” he said.

“If this trend continues, the Victorian government would be able to lift Stage 4 in three weeks time.”

Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton said on Tuesday that he would not be drawn on whether Victoria can ease restrictions on September 13 — the date when six weeks of stage four restrictions will end.

“I’m not jumping ahead at this stage to September 13,” he told reporters. “We’ve said all along when we get close enough to understand exactly how things are going, we’ll give people as much notice as we possibly can.”

When pushed for an answer, he said he did not know when a decision would be made about what comes next.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has been under pressure after yesterday revealing plans to extend a state of emergency in Victoria for 12 more months. Picture: NCA NewsWire/ David Crosling

“I don’t know. I don’t know. We’ll get there when we get there,” he said.

“Everyone wants to know what it will look like on the other side and when we’ll get there and what we’ll decide, but we have to take every day as it comes because, you know, we can be surprised in this space. It’s been good to see things trend as we have expected. But the tail is tricky.”

He said the 7-day trend is “clearly heading down” and “I expressed home that we’d be under 150 (new cases daily by now) and we’re here now”.

“So it is encouraging to see these numbers. They will go up and down.”

He expressed some concern that lower testing numbers might be impacting the number of new infections each day.

“We do have some lower testing numbers that might mean that this number even increases in the next couple of days if people can come forward for testing today and tomorrow,” he said.

“We absolutely want to encourage that. We want to find every single case that’s out there. But these somewhat lower numbers might be a reflection of having testing that’s below the 15,000 mark.”

As of Tuesday, there are 3,651 active cases across the state.