NSW recorded 11 new COVID-19 cases yesterday, with all but one of them linked to a known source.
A lockdown of Sydney is said to be looking increasingly unlikely, with health officials increasingly confident that contact tracers are getting on top of Sydney’s current outbreak, which has now risen to 49:
“It is a very contagious variant but at the same time we are at this stage comfortable that the settings that are in place are the appropriate settings,” Ms Berejiklian said…
Epidemiologists and public health experts remain sceptical about whether health authorities will be able to contain the spread of Covid-19 without further restrictions.
“I think the chance of them getting this without a lockdown is less than 50-50,” said University of Melbourne Epidemiologist Tony Blakely…
Mary-Louise McLaws, a World Health Organisation adviser, said: “One of the problems is NSW does not like to go into lockdown, as they don’t like to interfere with the business sector.
“As someone who has had experience with an outbreak I’ve seen that going in earlier has a way better outcome than waiting too late,” Professor McLaws said.
Whether the NSW Government has made the right call will be determined in time.
All I will say is that the prior two outbreaks were managed without city-wide lockdowns. The mid-2020 outbreak spread at a similar rate to the current outbreak, whereas the New Year’s Eve outbreak spread faster than the current outbreak:
This outbreak spreading no faster than prior episodes.
Moreover, while this COVID variant is supposedly more transmissible than prior variants, NSW contact tracers are also likely far better prepared and ‘match fit’ this time around.
The NSW Government has repeatedly proved the naysayers wrong. Let’s hope it can do so again.
Given its track record, we should give the Government the benefit of the doubt.
