What do zero-COVID states have ahead of them?
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What are the expected COVID‑19 case trends when zero‑COVID states reopen their borders?
This is an ABC podcast. Hello, this is CoronaCast, a daily podcast all about the coronavirus. I'm Health Reporter Tegan Taylor.
And I'm physician and journalist, Dr. Norman Swan. It's Wednesday the thirteenth of October, twenty twenty one. And you know what we didn't do yesterday, Teagan? We didn't wish happy birthday to our producer, Will Okenden, without whom this podcast would not have happened and would still not be happening.
It'll be a bin fire at best or and and non existent at worst. Happy birthday will. Well speaking of Will, who is based in Tasmania, and yesterday the Tasmanian premier was starting to drop some hints about what their reopening plan might look like. And it got me thinking about these states that have virtually no vi or no virus in them at the moment, and they're heading towards really high vaccination levels, which is a bit different to what we're watching play out at the moment in states like New South Wales, Victoria, and the ACT, where there's high vaccination rates, but there's also relatively high rates. rates of the virus itself. And I'm wondering, Norman, like when these when these states do open up and the virus inevitably comes in, what kind of case numbers should we be preparing ourselves for in this sort of shift towards COVID normal?
So Tasmania is saying maybe what they'll do is you've got to be have a negative test and you've got to be fully vaccinated before you we let you in. And that's gonna r reduce the risk hugely in terms of people coming in with the virus, but not completely.
How might imported cases spark exponential versus slow growth in highly vaccinated states?
Let's assume that there are no controls. So there's no contact tracing, no testing. So somebody arrives off the plane with COVID-19. It's v it's hard to predict because one person could get off the plane in Launceston, they could go and visit their mum and dad. Um, they don't go out very much and then they go home and their mom and dad they haven't got a very big family and they go home on the plane and all they've done and their mother and d their elderly mum and dad are vaccinated, they don't spread it to anybody and then they go home. Um a young person could get off the plane with lots of friends in Tasmania or Perth or Adelaide and they go out and party and they're quite and they're really at peak infection when they do that and you get a major spreading event and then it's off and running.
Then you could have or you could have a dozen people getting off planes in Launceston and Hobart all at the same time, and then you've got multiple spot fires all over Hobart and Launceston. In which case it will go nuts. Albeit in a highly vaccinated population, there will still be significant numbers of people who are unvaccinated in whom it can spread. And it will spread within vaccinated people as well, even though they won't get sick. So all those variables apply. And eventually somebody will get off a plane who is going to be as going to a super spreading event, who's got got a lot of virus on board. So it's gonna happen eventually. And the way it will w it will go, you've seen it the way it works in Victoria and in New South Wales, you will get exponential growth.
But it will be slow slower exponential growth than you saw in those states because you've got very high levels of vaccination.
What pre‑border‑opening controls can limit spread and hospitalisations in COVID‑free states?
So you're going to see a steady growth. It's not as if you're gonna have Two cases one day and five hundred a week later. It's going to be more very, very slow, steady growth. And eventually it will go into a bit of a bit faster exponential growth, but there are going to be limits to that. Now you add in a layer of controls, which is encourag having and having those controls ready to go and in action before you open your borders rather than afterwards. Which might be that we uh insist uh in these states that you wear masks indoors and you start that back before you open borders, where you encourage people to increase testing rates, where you put fear in their hearts about opening up to get to the highest possible vaccination levels.
And if you can get controls in so that you've got contact tracing, you've got testing, you've got
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What are the expected COVID‑19 case trends when zero‑COVID states reopen their borders?
0:00–1:22
2
How might imported cases spark exponential versus slow growth in highly vaccinated states?
1:22–3:04
3
What pre‑border‑opening controls can limit spread and hospitalisations in COVID‑free states?
3:04–4:48
4
What should double‑vaccinated listeners do if they feel unwell – PCR or rapid antigen testing?
4:48–6:00
5
How does full vaccination affect the risk of developing long COVID?
6:00–7:13
6
What are the actual hospitalisation, ICU and long‑COVID risks for children under 12?
7:13–8:42
7
How can targeted communication improve COVID‑vaccine uptake in Indigenous communities?
8:42–10:17