Travel bans, coronavirus and intensive care, and tracking the virus

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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

Unknown 0:02

This is an ABC Podcast.

Dr. Norman Swan 0:06

Hello and welcome to the Health Report with me, Norman Swan. Today, tracking the spread and mutation of the COVID-19 virus. An intensive care specialist sounds the alarm for hospitals, and over the weekend, the Australian government intensified its travel restrictions to reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2. All overseas visitors are now required to self-isolate for two weeks upon arrival in Australia. That's on top of banning foreign national From mainland China, Iran, South Korea, and Italy. But how effective are these bands and when can we lift them? And is self isolation even the right term? Professor Reiner McIntyre has modeled the effectiveness of those very first travel bands from mainland China, brought in on February first.

Dr. Norman Swan 0:46

Reiner is head of the biosecurity program at the Kirby Institute at the University of New South Wales. And joined us now via Skype. Welcome back to the health report. Third time, I think, Rainer. Thanks, Norman. So you modelled three different scenarios for this, didn't you?

Raina McIntyre 1:01

Yes, and this is not published work, I have to say that up front. Um so it's not peer reviewed. Um it's just But nor is very much that

Dr. Norman Swan 1:09

we're looking at in this area at the moment, 'cause everything's going to press so quickly.

Raina McIntyre 1:13

Yes, so I can only talk in general kind of principles, but basically travel is the main vector for um spread of infections around the world. So anything you do to reduce or restrict travel will have an impact on epidemics and um you know, looking particularly at the a ban on travel that was implemented on the first of February in Australia for travellers from China, um, it appears to have been very effective. So it was a good call. And um uh however now we're seeing uh that Europe is the epicentre of the um pandemic and um that's thrown up a whole lot of other interesting questions.

What new travel restrictions has the Australian government introduced for COVID‑19?

Dr. Norman Swan 1:53

So how did you do this study?

Raina McIntyre 1:56

Um well we basically just looked at um De Um number of travellers between China and Australia. Um the frequency of travel, the number of cases that were occurring in China at the time. And there are risk of an importation occurring based on that. We also modelled the um probable epidemic in China given that there probably was some under ascertainment of cases.

Dr. Norman Swan 2:25

And y you so so you looked at a a model of a scenario where there was no ban, um, then scenario two was the current ban followed by a a full lifting and then a partial lifting to allow the university students to enter Austral to enter Australia but not the tourists. And what did each one of those scenarios tell you?

Raina McIntyre 2:43

So if we hadn't impl the main finding the bottom line finding is if we haven't impl if we had not implemented that ban uh we would have been in a much worse situation, would have had a much larger epidemic. But we also included measures like isolating all the cases, which is what we've been doing. and tracking all the contacts. It's quite important to realise that Um, those measures, the quarantine of contacts and the um isolation of cases, are also very influential in control of epidemics, whatever disease you look at. And we've published um papers on different infections. We did a um modeling study of smallpox, um, which is also a respiratory transmissible disease, has a similar incubation period, and you do the same kind of control measures, and that showed that.

Raina McIntyre 3:29

Um if you stop ice if you don't isolate the majority of cases and if you don't track and quarantine the contacts, um, either of those things can make the epidemic blow out.

Dr. Norman Swan 3:42

And the and th the key here, all one of the keys here is when you take your foot off the brake and so you modeled a par a lifting a partial lifting of the band, what would that have done?

Raina McIntyre 3:52

Well, if if there's very few cases occurring in the source country at the time, then you can kind of look at um, you know, phased approaches to lifting bans, but um I think it's all kind of The question is redundant now because i while you know the total number of case new cases per day in the world has far exceeded now the daily the total number of daily cases, the peak of the Chinese epidemic.