Coronavirus NSW: Why Sydney New Year’s Eve celebrations could spell disaster

NSW is planning to push ahead with Sydney’s famous New Year’s Eve celebrations – despite experts warning it could present a potential super spreader disaster.

As Sydney races to contain an outbreak that could see Christmas – now just days away – cancelled, leading epidemiologists have warned that it’s time to pull the plug on New Year’s Eve.

December 31 in the NSW capital could present “the mother of all super-spreading events”, University of NSW infectious diseases expert Professor Raina MacIntyre wrote in a piece for The Sydney Morning Herald on Sunday.

“People infected today and tomorrow may travel halfway across Sydney for the family Christmas lunch and maybe to another household for dinner, possibly infecting a minimum of 360 new people,” Professor MacIntyre said.

“The 360 people infected on Christmas Day will be at their peak infectiousness on New Year’s Eve, and could infect more than 1000 others. We could be looking at 3000 cases by January 8. You could not plan a disaster more perfectly if you tried.”

Yet as families’ Christmas Day plans hang in the balance – with a decision yet to be made on Wednesday morning – NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard has remained adamant that celebrations, only six days after Christmas, will go ahead.

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The #COVID19 outbreak in #Sydney, timing, peak infectiousness, #epidemic growth and why New Years Eve may be the mother of all super-spreading events #COVID19nsw #NewYearsEve #Christmas2020 https://t.co/1xDqk48EE6 pic.twitter.com/MUkvpQz5qA

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“I appreciate the expertise of people who aren’t directly involved in the battle we have been involved in, but our advice is coming from our public health team. The Government takes that advice and they take the advice from other external epidemiologists,” Mr Hazzard told ABC News Breakfast this morning, after being questioned over Professor MacIntyre’s prediction.

“One of those people hasn’t spoken to Dr Chant about it all but there have been a host of epidemiologists and virologists, infectious disease specialists.

“The other thing that has happened all the way along the line is the best of the best are on the line every day, usually between 12pm and 2pm and it is called the AHPPC and those are all the experts from around the country.

“The information we have is instantly shared every day with all of them and the advice is taken on what we should and shouldn’t be doing. Dr Chant’s advice is at the moment that we proceed as we are.”

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NYE celebrations will ‘proceed as we are’, Health Minister Brad Hazzard said this morning. Picture: Gaye Gerard/NCA NewsWire

World Health Organisation (WHO) adviser and epidemiologist, UNSW Professor Mary-Louise McLaws said that “we know” holidays like the Lunar New Year, Eid, Hanukkah and Christmas “all have a potential to accelerate outbreaks”.

“They all have. And it’s not just with this particular disease, but this one is particularly problematic because the effective transmission rate is so high,” Professor McLaws told ABC News Breakfast this morning.

She added that she first flagged the risk of NYE back in September, writing to the Sydney mayor’s office and urging them to “seriously consider cancelling New Year’s Eve”.

“And at that stage, the average case number across 14 days was seven, nearly eight, and today the average case number is about five,” Professor McLaws said.

“And that’s a tipping point. But it could all be located in the northern beaches and that ring-fencing, hard ring-fencing – not light ring-fencing, hard ring-fencing – of not allowing anyone else without a paid point of care test even if they’re essential services might be able to prevent Christmas from being an accelerator.

“But certainly New Year’s Eve, sadly, should be cancelled this year.”

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A number of experts have warned NYE could spell disaster for Sydney. Picture: Mick Tsikas/AAP Image for City of Sydney

NYE plans, approved by the NSW Government in late November, declared that “the vast majority of citizens will not be allowed into the Sydney CBD precinct”.

Instead, “premium viewing spots” of a seven-minute fireworks display would be reserved only for frontline workers “to say thank you for keeping NSW safe throughout this year”.

“New Year’s Eve is the chance for Sydney and NSW to shine on the world stage,” Minister for Jobs, Investment and Tourism Stuart Ayres said at the time.

“Despite being a smaller celebration to normal, this New Years demonstrates that we are open for business and NSW will bring in 2021 with confidence.”

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But Professor MacIntyre told news.com.au yesterday that while current restrictions could be enough to drive down case numbers, authorities can’t afford to wait and see.

“It’s possible that everything could be controlled with the measures they’ve used but it’s not like at any other time of the year, there are unique and different risks at this time of the year,” she said.

“The difference with the Crossroads outbreak (in south west Sydney) is that we had no way of predicting whether there would be any superspreading events where the virus would get out of control, in this case we have 100 per cent certainty that there will be two superspreading events: December 25 and December 31.”