‘Wonderful news’: Expert says NSW peak may be just days away as reproductive rate drops below one

One of Australia’s leading infectious disease experts says NSW may very soon hit its peak, thanks to a very positive trend in the past week.

One of Australia’s leading infectious disease experts has flagged that NSW may very soon hit its peak for Covid-19 cases in this latest outbreak, thanks to a very positive trend in the past week.

Today the state announced another 1405 new locally acquired cases after a number of days of case numbers bouncing around.

While case numbers are still high each day, Professor Adrian Esterman, an epidemiologist at the University of South Australia, says there is a positive trend emerging.

He says that today the reproductive rate — meaning how many people each infected person passes the virus onto — has dropped below one for the first time since the outbreak started.

He has been tracking the reproductive rate of the virus in outbreaks across Australia every day, and he said the picture emerging in both NSW and Victoria was “heartening”.

In NSW, the Reff number, by his calculations, on Saturday was 1.21 and it has been dropping each day since then.

Another 1405 cases for NSW today. The 5-day moving average has dropped again to 1305, and the Reff has dropped below 1 for the first time since the outbreak started. It is starting to look very peakish. pic.twitter.com/uIzEE8ru5R

— Professor Adrian Esterman FACE (@profesterman) September 9, 2021

On Sunday it was 1.17, on Monday it was 1.13, on Tuesday it was 1.08, on Wednesday it was 1.01 and finally today he believes it has dropped below 0.96 which means that we could soon start to see case numbers coming down.

“My records are very rough compared to the true Reff number, but what we’re seeing from the trend is that, although cases are increasing, they are increasing but at a slower rate each day,” he told news.com.au.

He said this means the peak could be just a few days away and the peak case number could be around 1500 — which is much lower than what was feared by some.

According modelling he is following from Chris Billington, a research fellow in physics at the University of Melbourne, the decreasing Reff number means that September 15 could be the peak day.

Professor Esterman said this is “wonderful news” for everybody in Australia, and that it is most likely a result of the number of vaccinations administered in NSW.

This modelling from Chris Billington shows the NSW peak may just be days away.

“I believe what we’re seeing is the vaccinations kicking in because nothing else has really changed,” he said.

“Testing numbers have dipped slightly, but they haven’t dropped that much. A drop in testing could have a potential impact but I’m more inclined to believe (Chris Billington’s) modelling that puts vaccinations into it.”

He said the dropping Reff is a good sign for NSW — particularly for medical workers who were facing an avalanche of Covid cases in the coming weeks.

“We were really hoping things would go down because NSW because if they carried on it was going to be in deep trouble with the number of hospitalisations,” he said. “It looks like wonderful news for everybody.”

Another respected infectious diseases expert, Peter Collignon from the Australian National University, said it looks like NSW’s Covid case curve might be about to come down.

“It’s still a bit early, but it does look like NSW epidemic curve might be turning around and down,” he tweeted today. “We will be in a better position to be more confident in about 1 weeks time.”

It’s still a bit early, but it does look like NSW epidemic curve might be turning around and down. We will be in a better position to be more confident in about 1 weeks time. pic.twitter.com/MLUgjbGLMf

— Peter Collignon (@CollignonPeter) September 9, 2021

In further good news Professor Esterman said that it looks like Victoria’s outbreak is slowing down too, despite a sharp rise in cases today.

The state recorded 324 locally acquired infections in the 24 hours to midnight.

Just a few days ago the state had a Reff number of 2 — meaning each infected person was on average passing it onto two others.

However, Professor Esterman said that figure had now dropped to 1.4.