Coronavirus: Daniel Andrews now now claims modelling not key to lockdown plan

After using university modelling to justify extended lockdowns, Daniel Andrews now says his plan ‘is not an academic exercise’ amid revelations he misrepresented data.

After using university modelling to justify extended coronavirus lockdowns in Victoria, Premier Daniel Andrews now says his plan “is not an academic exercise” following revelations he misrepresented modelling data.

Mr Andrews and the state’s chief medical officer Professor Brett Sutton distanced themselves from the modelling on Saturday, after The Weekend Australian revealed numerous Melbourne University health experts said the Premier had misrepresented the modelling to justify lockdowns and his targets for easing restrictions were excessive. 

Mr Andrews last weekend said “you can’t argue with science,” citing the supercomputer modelling to justify extending restrictions potentially into November unless daily cases dropped below five. 

“You can’t argue with science,” Mr Andrews said last Sunday. 

“What the scientists tell us, and, frankly, it’s common sense, if we do this too fast, if we run to open up we won’t be open for long. This is not a 50-50 choice. The modelling … indicates that if we open up too fast then we have a very high likelihood that we are not opening up at all.”

Mr Andrews backtracked on Saturday, however, saying that common sense as well as real infection numbers would guide the state out of lockdown.

“I have said many times this week and I will make the point again because I think it is an important one, data trumps modelling every time. Actual numbers,’’ he said.

“We have put together a road map with a series of safe and steady steps to open and stay open.

“We have at no point said, ‘this is set in stone tablets and can never be changed’. In fact, we have been at pains to make the point as each day passes, the actual data, not what was presumed but what has actually occurred, gets put into this and the modelling, the process will be rerun to see where we are in real terms, and where we are compared to where we thought we would be.”

Assumptions were “always beaten by the actuals,” he said.

“That is why this is a constant, iterative development process.

Professor Shitij Kapur, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences at the University of Melbourne, has spoken out about the flawed use of COVID modelling to justify extended lockdowns. Picture: Aaron Francis/The Australian

“It is not set in stone and we have to wait and see exactly how successful we are in all of the targets we have set. They are targets but the point that was just made a moment ago, they are targets many people would have thought they were less likely than likely that by the middle of next week, regional Victoria would have such low case numbers they would be able to take not one step but two steps.”

Professor Sutton told reporters the modelling used to formulate the state’s roadmap had come from several sources.

“That modelling was really significant and a core input into decision-making for policy decisions, but it was by no means the only one,’’ he said.

“There have been lots of other inputs and, of course, it has been the experience of watching the numbers, both here and in other jurisdictions, to see the kind of levels you need to get to sustain those very low levels of transmission or get to know transmission if you can.”

Melbourne University’s dean and assistant Vice Chancellor of Health Shitij Kapur and colleague James McCaw, a professor of mathematical biology, in The Weekend Australian questioned the Victorian government’s suppression target of less than five new cases over a two-week period by October 26.

While it wasn’t impossible, it would be a target not yet achieved in any comparable country, they said.

“No major city in Europe has attempted to suppress transmission to this extent — not London, nor Paris or Berlin. Nor have New York or LA or Chicago; and certainly not Sao Paulo, Mexico City or Mumbai,” they said.

“Even the Asian cities lauded for their public health systems and compliant populations — Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo or Seoul — have not managed to achieve this strict threshold. Ironically the only major city that has achieved this is Wuhan. A city of 11 million that endured thousands of cases but then imposed perhaps the harshest of lockdowns, barring practically all movement and work.”

The professors said the models had not justified the political decisions the government had made.