Coronavirus Australia: ‘Tough measures working but next six months onerous’, Scott Morrison says

New data has made the government increasingly confident that it has broken the back of the COVID-19 pandemic.

People queue outside a Woolworths store in Sydney’s Mascot on Friday. Picture: Nikki Short

The federal government is increasingly confident it has broken the back of Australia’s COVID-19 pandemic, with new data showing tough border controls and social-distancing measures have nearly halved the growth rate of new ­infections.

As Australians ended their first week of unprecedented isolation measures, Scott Morrison revealed that health authorities had begun remodelling the trajectory of the disease to take into account the impact of social-distancing practices.

“The early news on some of this early modelling is that at the current­ rate, if we keep doing what we’re doing, and we keep doing the work to upgrade our ICU capacity and secure the extra ventilators and all the things we are doing right now, then right now that trajectory­ is promising,’’ the Prime Minister said.

The Weekend Australian has been told the modelling is likely to include a “worst-case scenario” infecti­on rate so the public is aware of the ramifications of breaking ­social-distancing regulations.

COVID-19 has so far infected more than 5314 Australians and killed 28, but Mr Morrison said that was a fraction of the figure forecast just two weeks ago.

“Had the virus kept growing at the same rate it was 12 days ago, we would now have more than 10,500 cases in this country,” he said.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said the government’s initial modelling presumed a viral growth rate “far higher’’ than has proved the case. “The rate of growth has dropped far further and far quicker,’’ he said. “They are redoing it now based on what we’ve managed to achieve.’’

Kathryn Snow, an epidemiologist at the University of Melbourne, said countries such as South Korea and Japan, which are ahead of Australia in suppression of the virus, had been able to slowly ease social restrictions.

“They haven’t seen a huge resurgence­ yet,’’ Professor Snow said. “So that’s been encouraging.’’

However, even as the government talked up the new figures, praising Australians for heeding the public health mess­ages around social distancing and hygiene, Mr Morrison warned of a long struggle ahead. He said Australians should brace for six month of onerous restrictio­ns on lifestyles and daily movements.

 

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrew­s warned on Friday that his state might progress to “stage four” restrictions, without detail­ing­ what that would entail.

“I think there will be a stage four — when I’m in a position and when I need to make those ­announcements, I will,” he said.

Mr Andrews said adhering to social-distancing measures was a “matter of life and death”, and implor­ed Victorians to stay home.

“Whether it be a big city hospital or a smaller regional hospital, they’ll all be overrun,” he said. “We’ll have people queuing for machines to help them breathe.”

Mr Hunt said the government’s strategy remained to lower the level of contagion in the communit­y while beefing up the cap­acity of the health system to handle any surge in critical cases.

“The expectation is the viral period is approximately six months,’’ he said. “Nobody is saying it will be completely eradicated but it will be at low levels and you’ll be on constant watch.’’

With extensive testing and mortality rates and patients now on ventilators at less than 1 per cent, health authorities believe they have enough real-world data to chart the course of the coronavirus in Australia.

Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy said the main concern was tracking the rate of community transmission. “While there will be some undetect­ed cases, we have a pretty good idea about the size of our outbreak,’’ he said.

 

University of Newcastle epidemiologist Craig Dalton said if all went well, Australians could ­expect a slow, cautious return to normality, one in which restrictions were lifted incrementally followed by a period of observation to gauge the effect. “It will ­obviously start with things that keep society functioning but would maintain things that have high impact, like social distancing and hygiene,’’ Professor Dalton said. “You wouldn’t have large ­gatherings any time soon — you’d still be limiting non-essential gatherings.’’

Mr Hunt agreed that such a scenario — a staged reopening of society — was a “very realistic ­assessment’’. “We are now sadly and with deep reluctance going into the most difficult period of restriction,’’ he said. “Our goal is first and foremost to defeat the virus but also to keep our humanity.’’

Peter Collignon, a professor of microbiology at the Australian National University, said Aust­ralia appeared to be making good progress. “We have more than just flattened the curve,” he said.

“We are reversing it. But until we have broad immunity from a safe vaccine or from infection itself, we will continue to be at risk.”

Professor Collignon’s big worry is the likely volume of low-level and asymptomatic cases of COVID-19 going undetected in the community, which meant the virus was likely to at best keep “smouldering” away and could cause problems when the colder months arrive. My real concern is what’s going to happen in winter,” he said. “If we have low-level numbers around, which we are likely to have, in winter every virus … multiplie­s and travels further.”

Marylouise McLaws, a University of NSW epidemiologist and adviser to the World Health ­Organisation, said a pandemic “has severa­l peaks and troughs, then it will start heading towards the horizontal axis … even then you still can’t get excited because you can still have outbreaks”.

Mr Morrison also flagged a new phase for the bipartisan nat­ional cabinet, with an intention to maintain current restrictions and give stability to Australians who have endured rapidly changing rules in the past fortnight.

Additional reporting: Remy Varga, Natasha Robinson