The Doherty Institute has released its modelling showing Australia’s vaccination targets for the path out of the pandemic which has driven the national cabinet’s four-phase plan for reopening the country. But it focuses on the first two phases of Australia’s reopening plan — only modelling six months of scenarios.
“The reason we stopped where we did was we said six months is a long time in this pandemic,” director of epidemiology at the Doherty Institute Professor Jodie McVernon said yesterday. “COVID-19 is a reality that won’t go away.”
No phase D and limited information on phase C
Phase C, the consolidation phase of the reopening strategy, will happen once the country hits over 80% vaccination rates for those 16 and over (64% of the population) and consists of highly targeted lockdowns only, increased border caps and lifting all restrictions on outbound travel for vaccinated Australians.
The modelling found expanding the vaccine program to the 12- to 15-year age group would have minimal impact on transmission.
But phase C wasn’t given much attention because of the probable emergence of virus variants and waning vaccine or natural immunity, and the potential for vaccine products to enter the market.
The impact of booster doses, or who should be prioritised to get them, is also not addressed.
No plan to allow infections to soar
As more people get vaccinated, Australia will have to get used to seeing infection rates increase — so long as hospitalisations and deaths stay low.
But the modelling shows there’s no plan to let infections run wild, with restrictions, quarantine and snap lockdowns when necessary here to stay to flatten the curve of infections and allow health systems to bolster their ICU capacity, workforce and supplies.
“[It’s about] prevention rather than cure, rather than having to catch up at the other end,” McVernon said.
“The objectives of the strategy we’re proposing by having the transition to phase B at 70% [vaccinated] with the overlaid low social measures is to be able to turn what would otherwise be a bushfire with rapid epidemic growth and high caseloads into more of a control backburn.”
She says there is a risk certain communities may be slower or more hesitant to get vaccinated, which could lead to localised restrictions in those areas and needed to be addressed through ongoing community engagement.
Young people to become a focus
The modelling showed a “strategic shift” for vaccinating younger people who are more likely to spread the virus, bringing forward vaccinations for those aged 30 to 39 to the beginning of September, and people aged 16 to 29 to early October.
Treasury also calculated the economic impact of the vaccination scenarios modelled, showing short, sharp lockdowns and ongoing restrictions will be key to keeping costs to a minimum until vaccination rates go above 70%.
“Immunising younger people, reducing transmission, is critical to maximising the gains of a whole population program,” McVernon said.
Good planning involves risk management. One of the best ways of working through the necessary decisions required for a plan to work is to have a risk analysis. These can be done a number of ways – but fairly central is the idea of the likelihood of the risk and the potential severity of the consequences.
Ministers (and governments) can get quite upset by them. That is because if they are done honestly then the danger of political decisions with severe consequences is drawn out (think about the timing of the NSW lockdown as an example). It disturbs ‘she’ll be right – we have it under control’ fantasys. Even worse it might lead to accountability for decisions.
I remember as part of an aid project trying to put a risk analysis on a difficult policy that had to go to the Minister and then Cabinet of that developing country – one somewhat known for corrupt semi-authoritarian governance. “Öh no” said the governmnet bureaucrats. “We never tell them there is any risk to policies. They don’t want to hear that.”
So I wonder if the Doherty modeling and associated planning has any risk analysis. Or is our federal government retreating into the fantasy world of governance favoured by crooked third world governments who really don’t much care what happens to their people unless it impacts on them personally.
And to compliment this good article here is Norman Swan on today’s coronacast.
Doherty Institute’s modelling endorsed short sharp lockdowns which is what Labor Premiers have been doing and for which they’ve been criticised by Scum Morri$sin; with KillerGladdly held up as the gold standard.
…”as vaccination grows, and before you can rely on vaccination, they have concluded that the short, sharp lockdown is the way to go, because what we are doing is we are living normally, and when an outbreak occurs we need that shock tactic to actually keep us at home, stop us circulating in the community and stop the virus in its tracks when the case numbers are extremely low.
So what they did, they endorsed Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and presumably Western Australia’s strategy here to go for quick, short lockdowns.
And Treasury modelling showed that that was the least economically damaging process to go through, rather than allowing it to go exponential, as it has in New South Wales. So that’s the first thing, short, sharp lockdowns.
Rest here:
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/coronacast/the-official-modelling-is-out-now-what/13482046
This Government has no plan! It is just announcement of the Doherty Institute’s model.
After a model has been created it should be followed up with a detailed plan. A plan is not a one-page explaining the model’s main idea. A plan is the strategy. It
lists the steps with details and timing. Resources needed to achieve an
objective to do something. It includes risk assessments, economic impact,
health and social impact. It needs to include the sustainability and the short-
and long-term future. It should include milestones and KPIs. It must be
transparent and easily to be understood. Once the plan is created, the owner(s)
of the plan need to own it and take full responsibility for its
implementations. Our current politicians have no idea what a plan is, leave
alone a long-term plan. We have hardly any competent public servants left, and
their replacement’s, the extremely costly consultant companies are not chosen
on merits and competence.
Modelling is always a fantasy expressed in numbers – the reason is that the premises are usual fluffy and inaccurate [same as a nice award winning house can be built on sludge, but doesn’t last long] the rest is just mathematical manipulation. Same as a nice award winning house can be built on sludge, but doesn’t last long. What is known isolating and masking is 98% effective. The States that have that at as the forefront of their policies,WA,NT,Queensland have been the most successful and now Victoria has learnt the lesson. NSW “leadership”, for want of a better word, are the dumbest and it shows as the y have created this social and financial crisis that now infects the country. The way out would bee to quarantine NSW from the rest of the country.
True enough Desmond, but better described as saying modelling of chaotic systems. By definition, chaotic systems are those where very small changes to initial conditions can lead to large differences in outcomes. The effect is that the model is out of date by the time it is published.
The assumptions though, they must be heroic. I used to be an analyst and there was a whole range of work I advised my bosses it wasn’t worth doing. Unfortunately they learned the word ‘modelling’ while doing their MBAs, without ever really understanding them.
The Doherty Institute guys and gals would be smart as, and they would be doing the sums with a great sense of uncertainty.
The plan is to allow Covid to become endemic in Australia and to then “treat it like the flu” as Scott Morrison has said many times.
Phase C is at 80% vaccination of total population, which could happen by the end of the year. So we could be in phase D, the real “let it rip phase”, early next year with international borders re opened.
Having Covid endemic takes away the level of protection we have had and that has allowed us to get through this much of the pandemic with minimal impact and risk.
It’s not just a risk to the un-vaccinated. If a new variant develops that is able to evade the current vaccine then we are in big trouble. Imagine how many lives would have been lost if Morrison had gotten his way and let it run last year before the delta variant came along and before we had any vaccine. It was the state governments who saved us from Morrison and saved a lot of lives.
We should be aiming for zero community transmission not aiming to let Covid become endemic while it is raging around the world and the future is still uncertain.
Let’s at least make sure we can develop our own vaccine here to get on top of new variants fast .. and maybe we should look at producing more N95 face masks. If we had given all of the essential workers in Sydney N95’s it might have helped .. and still could help.
… develop our own mRNA vaccine …..