Victoria's coronavirus cases could almost halve over next 10 days
The number of active coronavirus cases could almost halve in Victoria over the next 10 days, according to modelling that forecasts the growth of the spread.
Melbourne University has created a website using Johns Hopkins University data that works similarly to a weather forecast by predicting how active coronavirus cases will change based off current trajectories.
Ben Phillips, an associate professor in population biology who designed the modelling, told Yahoo News Australia there would be comforting news for Victoria in the next 10 days if the number of new cases continued to trend downwards.
“The modelling assumes what has been happening for the last seven to 10 days continues to happen,” Associate Professor Phillips told Yahoo News Australia.
“In Victoria, it’s very encouraging. The growth rate has been declining steadily for at least the last 20 days. Of course as lockdown measures increase that’s what is expected to continue.”
On Monday, Victoria recorded 282 new cases, following 279 new infections on Sunday.
Professor Phillips said if the growth rate continued to drop in Victoria then the number of active cases in the state was expected to decrease quite rapidly over the next 10 days.
“It should drop at the same speed it went up,” he said.
However, he warned people still needed to remain vigilant despite the promising prediction.
“One of the aspects of this epidemic is things change very rapidly and we certainly need to be careful,” he said.
“The modelling adjusts like a weather forecast in the way that it might look good for tomorrow but not so good in a week’s time.
“You can expect it to change as a week’s time comes closer.”
Professor Phillips said the forecasting focused on total active cases, rather than new daily cases, and predicted the number could decrease by about 3000 in 10 days time.
“The number of active cases currently is around 8000, we may expect it to be around 5000 in 10 days time if things continue the way they are going,” he said.
Lockdown’s ‘huge effect’ on case growth
Professor Phillips said the forecasting showed how strict lockdowns slowed the growth of the virus and helped numbers to decline.
“It has a huge effect on the number of cases,” he said.
“Otherwise – what the website doesn’t show – we’d be in a similar situation to the US.
“We’ve really averted a huge number of deaths, despite the fact it being a difficult time we should still feel we’ve done a good job.”
Professor Phillips said if Victoria continued on the trajectory it was on in mid-June, the state would see hundreds of thousands of active cases in Victoria.
“One or two months ago the growth rate was very high and we were seeing doubling times of six days – a doubling of cases every six days,” he said.
“It’s astonishing how fast it can go up – if we continued with those growth rates we would have a surprisingly large number of cases and no doubt that both early interventions and now this more serious lockdown made a dramatic impact on potential cases.”
Professor Phillips said instead of now seeing doubling time, Victoria was experiencing halving time, showing how long it will take for the state to halve its cases.
“The current estimate is 200 days. It’s slower than we might like but if the trends in growth rate continue, that number should start decreasing,” he said.
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