Coronavirus: ‘Keep hotspots in lockdown, relax in safe areas’

Australia’s push to suppress the coronavirus has proved so effective that some experts believe it is time to ­measure ‘flattening the curve’ differen­tly.

Australia’s push to suppress the coronavirus has proved so effect­ive that some infectious disease experts believe it is time to ­measure “flattening the curve” differen­tly, by shifting attention away from national case numbers to the pattern in local areas, as the best way to combat the disease.

Ahead of a national cabinet meeting on Friday that could recommend possible easing of restrictions, epidemiologists contacted by The Australian on Thursday said the government’s COVID-19 strategy had worked remarkably well in helping to reduce new cases across the country to just 20 over the previous 24 hours.

However, they urged a new way of looking at the curve, considering 14 of the newly recorded cases were linked to the Cedar Meats abattoir outbreak in Victoria while other states reported very few cases and there had been none in South Australia and Western Australia for a week.

In tackling the disease, experts tracking the spread said it was clear that transmission from inter­national travellers had virtually ceased. While it was too early to say that community-based spread of COVID-19 had stopped, because­ of an unknown number of undiagnosed cases showing no symptoms, the pattern of spread was very different from one city or ­region to another, they said.

By identifying the safest areas, federal and state governments had an option to begin targeted trials of relaxing social restrictions and opening the economy while sticking with stricter ­regimens in ­hotspots.

As of late Thursday, there had been 6896 confirmed cases, with 759 still active and 97 deaths. NSW had the highest reported incidence (3044), followed by Victoria (1454) and Queensland (1045).

Mary-Louise McLaws, an infection control expert at the University of NSW who has plotted Australia’s COVID-19 curve, said assessing its “real-time” spread require­d a deeper look at daily and cumulative numbers.

“We’re now on a long tail, and the numbers per day are dropping, but when you have a look at it, as in the overall country, what you find is a slightly different pattern.

 

“It is not like SARS, in 2002 and 2003, where you became sick rapidly­ if you contracted it, you went to hospital, and there you stayed. This one, the majority of numbers going to hospital are very small. That doesn’t mean it’s nice but it’s milder (for most).”

She said the pattern for NSW, as the largest state with the highest reported cases, suggested certain areas should be “no-go zones” while others could be freed up.

Professor McLaws singled out how southeastern Sydney had the highest number of active cases per 100,000 population at 674 early in the pandemic, down to 32 with 639 recoveries and three fatalities.

The highest active numbers were in Sydney’s north (127), Nepean (88) to the west, metropolitan Sydney (72) and the southwest (62). She said these areas were very different to others: the far west (one active case), mid-north coast (three), Murrumbidgee (eight) and southern NSW (10).

Stephen Duckett, a health economist from Melbourne’s Grattan Institute, said national figures­ did not help much because all pandemics were “local … If you look at South Australia, they’ve had zero cases for the last fortnight. In Victoria, they’ve just had two outbreaks, and so they are in a very different situation.”

He said if restrictions in Mildura­ were relaxed, for instance, the area could be quarantined if a case was later reported without shutting down all of Victoria.