The director of the Doherty Institute, whose modelling underlies the national plan to reopen Australia, says reopening with large numbers of daily COVID-19 cases will still be safe once the country reaches its target of 70 to 80 per cent of the adult population vaccinated.
After days of debate between state premiers, Prime Minister Scott Morrison and epidemiologists over the suitability of those targets given the size of the Delta outbreak in NSW, Professor Sharon Lewin confirmed the number of cases did not materially alter the Institute’s modelling on which the plan was based.
Doherty Institute director Sharon Lewin.
“The really big important issue about moving from phase A to phase B is that we’re moving out of an environment of zero-COVID,” she told the ABC TV’s The Drum on Monday evening.
“Zero-COVID is no longer the goal once you have 70 to 80 per cent of people vaccinated. Whether you start at 30 cases or 800 cases you can still open up safely.”
Read more about the modelling, and subsequent debate, here.
Source: SMH
