New South Wales will need to tighten social-distancing restrictions if it cannot stem coronavirus cases arriving from Victorian, according to epidemiologists who say infected people are likely already in the state undetected.
Key points:
- Epidemiologists say cases from Victoria could create an environment where contact tracing is challenging
- One said up to 18 per cent of cases were asymptomatic, but were still infectious
- The State Government has flagged a secondary border zone near Albury
Health authorities in NSW were yesterday scrambling to contain two major breaches of the tough new border restrictions, after plane passengers from Melbourne left Sydney Airport without screening and a Victorian child tested positive for the virus while holidaying on the South Coast.
Mary-Louise McLaws, an epidemiologist and World Health Organization adviser, said there was a "magic number" of active cases in NSW where authorities were so overwhelmed they could no longer do effective contact tracing.
"If it gets to about 100 cases across two incubation periods — about 14 days each — in very quick succession it doubles and then after that, it can double and triple each period," she said.
With 454 active cases in NSW as of Tuesday night, albeit many of those in hotel quarantine, infected travellers crossing the border could contribute to community transmissions.
"A few cases coming over the border from Victoria [can] tip that magic number into outbreaks that are going to be very hard to control," she said.
Yesterday, NSW Health confirmed a Victorian teenager had tested positive for coronavirus on the NSW South Coast, after a Victorian Health bungle saw him falsely given a clean bill of health after a swab in his home state.
The teenager's family had visited the Tathra Hotel while infectious, prompting the contact tracing and swabbing of more than 80 people who also attended the venue.
In the ACT, three new cases of coronavirus were also traced back to the outbreak in Victoria, more than a month since the last-known positive case in the territory.
Fiona Stanaway, a clinical epidemiologist from the University of Sydney, said it was highly likely carriers of the virus from Melbourne were already in NSW.
"If there's been some transmission from people coming back from Melbourne, and people having contact with those people, we won't really see that until another couple of weeks or so," Dr Stanaway said.
"That really emphasises the importance of people getting tested."
Professor McLaws said up to 18 per cent of COVID-19 cases were asymptomatic but those people were still capable of spreading the virus.
"We know that 100 per cent of cases have a pre-symptomatic period … two days before they start to become symptomatic they can cause a risk to others because they can be infectious," she said.
Both experts said bringing back tighter social restrictions — something the NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has repeatedly said she wanted to avoid — was a possibility.
The State Government has flagged the idea of placing all travellers from Victoria into 14-day hotel quarantine and "ring-fencing" — or creating a secondary border around — Albury.
Dr Stanaway said the failure to screen 48 passengers as they disembarked at Sydney Airport on Tuesday was an oversight, but the overall response by the NSW Government had been good.
However, since easing restrictions over the past month she said the populace had become complacent.
"I think it's really still important for people to try and social distance as much as they can," Dr Stanaway said.
"It's hard because I think we're all quite exhausted by the whole thing and because we've had things open up, people have felt that it's quite safe to go back to what was a much more normal life.
"This shouldn't just be thought of as Melbourne's problem and we really need to realise that this can happen anywhere and can happen again."
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMibmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIwLTA3LTA5L3ZpY3RvcmlhLWNvcm9uYXZpcnVzLWNhc2VzLWNvdWxkLWxlYWQtdG8tbnN3LWNvdmlkLTE5LWxvY2tkb3duLzEyNDM1NjU40gEnaHR0cHM6Ly9hbXAuYWJjLm5ldC5hdS9hcnRpY2xlLzEyNDM1NjU4?oc=5
2020-07-08 19:11:00Z
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