Insight
New Zealand and Queensland have been the most successful of the big population states of Aust/NZ at flattening the curve, with both getting very close to no new cases on a daily basis. Victoria and Tasmania’s experience show how quickly a cluster can flare up into significant numbers of new cases.
This week, there is increasing talk on both sides of the Tasman about reopening – schools, businesses, even football codes. I thought it was worth a retrospective look at where we have come from in Covid19 cases. New Zealand is, of course, its own country. But it is comparable in size to the big Australian states, so I thought it was worth comparing the curve. The graph below looks at the moving average of number of new cases in each of NSW, Victoria, Queensland and NZ (population sizes of 7.5m, 6.4m,5.1m and 4.9m).
I started tracking this on March 20, when we were just locking down in both countries (using the excellent CovidLive). New Zealand went to level 4 from March 26th, and Australia inched into it over that week, with a lockdown by Sunday 29th March roughly equivalent to NZ level 3. During that week there was an average of over 300 new cases a day identified in Australia, and the graph shows the picture state by state, with NSW taking the brunt.
Now, 40 days later, how are we going? New Zealand and Queensland are doing better than Victoria and NSW. Over the past week, New Zealand has had 1.7 new cases per day, Queensland has had 1.3. NSW has had 3.7 and Victoria has had 12.3, driven by a big outbreak in a meat processing plant in Victoria, and an aged care facility in NSW.
Both countries have done extremely well by international standards, but the increase in Victoria shows how quickly a new outbreak can emerge.
And what about the smaller states? Even better, with no new cases for more than a week in South Australia and West Australia. They did probably starting with an advantage of fewer cases seeded from international travel to start with, but it is still very good news. In this picture, you can really see the impact of the outbreak in north western Tasmania, again showing how quickly this disease can flare up if there are still cases in lurking in the community.
Link
The Actuaries Institute has rejigged its Pandemic Resource centre, so that it is easier to find information. Check out the new design here. There is a lot of original content, both on the impact of Covid19 on financial institutions, and also on the wider implications.
Life Glimpses
In my daily walk around the neighbourhood, I usually go past at least two, often more, of the 7 high schools within walking distance of my house. This week one of them (a private girls school) has brought quite a few of its students back to school. It reminded me again how impossible physical distancing is going to be when students are back at school. They are very well behaved teenage girls, but they are sitting together in groups of 4-8 having lunch on the grass, and queuing up together at the local cafes. I can’t imagine what it would take to get them all to stay 1.5m from each other, particularly when they haven’t seen each other for more than a month.
Bit of Beauty
Today’s bit of beauty comes from Taronga Zoo. The lovely Edwardian entrance was completely devoid of people when I rode my bike past the other day.
What route do you take to the Zoo?
I suspect that, once social distancing is eased keeping R0 below 1 is going to be very difficult. Either contact tracing will have to become a whole lot more precise, or some method to “stamp out” the flare-ups will need to be developed (isolate contacts of contacts? localised lock-downs? …other?). Since the virus always has a 7-14 day headstart, I’d imagine new cases will likely come in batches, not as singletons.
I go through the back streets of Neutral Bay and Cremorne to get to Avenue Rd – avoiding Rangers Rd where possible. And no mask! I almost bought one during the bushfires, but by the time I got around to it, they were needed more for health workers.
I agree that keeping R0 below 1 is going to be very difficult. Clearly there is a lot more opening up already happening, just from the informal messaging out there. Hopefully the level of testing going on now means the headstart will be closer to 7 days than 14 though.
Here the question of opening schools is in chaos. They were supposed to open for grade 1 to 3, with all
sort of instructions. Quite a number of parents did not send the children. The last 2 years students are
studying on line but schools are to be opened in the next fortnight, once again it becomes very
complicated with all the directives from Ministry of Health.
Did you take the photo of the entrance, just lovely, Was it in the afternoon. Do you cycle in a mask, if you
do is it comfortable.
Love
Marta