As health authorities continue to refine modelling of Australia's coronavirus curve, the margin of error in their findings is getting wider — but that's actually a good thing.
Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy presented the latest coronavirus modelling this afternoon, showing that Australia continues to stamp down the number of new infections being recorded each day.
Currently, there have been 6,673 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Australia, of which more than 5,000 have recovered.
There have been 78 deaths.
Here's what the latest modelling shows.
Margins of error are getting wider
The Government's "nowcasting" of the coronavirus situation in Australia aims to take stock of the coronavirus situation using the latest numbers.
But that process gets less accurate if less data is fed into it.
As case numbers continue to fall, the data being put into modelling is shrinking, making forecasts less precise.
That being said, predictive modelling looking at the coming two weeks does suggest a further decline in numbers.
But Professor Murphy cautioned against taking that as a reason to be complacent.
"This is new science, this is not very reliable science, they're just developing this," he said.
Jodie McVernon from the Doherty Institute, which is responsible for formulating the modelling, said systems to track the growth rate of COVID-19 were a work in progress.
"We're continually improving our methods to account for the local epidemiology," she said.
The reproduction rate remains low
Across the states, the effective reproduction rate — or Reff — for the virus remains below one.
That means that every person who contracts it, on average, will transmit the virus to less than one other person.
Of the states, Tasmania is the closest to having an effective reproduction rate above one.
You'll notice we only referenced the states. That's because the ACT and the NT have so few cases that modelling is not statistically valid.
"It should be a mark of pride not to be on this graph," Professor Murphy said.
The chief medical officer also outlined new and improved modelling which excludes cases that originated overseas.
He argued those numbers were less useful in determining a reproduction rate, as "the opportunity for a returned traveller to infect locals is essentially zero," due to strict quarantine measures.
When you remove internationally acquired cases, Tasmania is the only state to have a reproduction rate above one.
Professor Murphy said that was due to the cluster of cases in Tasmania's north-west.
"Because the case numbers, we've taken out the returned travellers, the error margins are even broader," he said.
"Tasmania is slightly over one, but continuing its very good trend as it gets control of the outbreak in north-west Tasmania."
Professor McVernon said the numbers showed the restrictions on social movement had been successful.
"Our estimates of Reff are a bit higher than our previous report, but still below the critical threshold of one needed to prevent case numbers from increasing, confirming that current public health and distancing measures are working," she said.
Professor Murphy said the refined modelling would be implemented from now on as it was more sensitive and more reliable
"What it tells us is, we are close to one, we've got to keep it below one," he said.
"We have to not be complacent."
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2020-04-24 05:45:35Z
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