The days without community transmission in Brisbane is welcome news, but it’s not all good news. A Queensland nurse recently contracted a new disease from another state while on holiday in NSW. She had a close contact with the person who had contracted the virus, but her tests came back negative on Monday. However, when she was tested again on Wednesday, she came back positive. Thankfully, she’s already in quarantine for the rest of the week, and is unlikely to pass the virus on to others. This has prevented any more deaths and lowered the risk to the community.
While Australia has been successful in containing the outbreak, it still has several ways to go. The first step is vaccination. It’s estimated that 99% of Australians have not yet been vaccinated against the coronavirus. Despite the fact that this is still a big concern, the Queensland state government has made good progress in controlling the virus.
Travel restrictions will be eased for people outside the Greater Brisbane region. The restrictions will continue to be in place until 6pm tonight, and then there will be a 10-day period with fewer restrictions. People still need to wear masks outside and indoors. Further advice will be released to tourism operators on how to communicate with tourists.
This latest development was welcomed by Queenslanders and those who live in the state. It is encouraging to note that Queensland had long periods of zero locally acquired cases. Zero community transmission is a key goal for preventing an outbreak, and Queensland was well on its way. However, there are still a number of questions that remain. For example, is there a new strain of the virus that has increased transmissibility? Only time will tell.
To model future outbreaks, epidemiologists will need to develop a model with parameters specific to Queensland. These parameters include the overall transmissibility, initial number of infections, and testing odds ratio. The model will be calibrated using data provided by the Queensland Epidemiology Team. These data will span from the first confirmed case of the disease in the state on 28 January 2020 to the last confirmed case on 1 March 2020.
In a scenario where a single alpha or delta variant is introduced, the probability of sustained community transmission is marginally above the alpha variant. However, the introduction of a small number of variants with high transmissibility will dramatically increase the probability of an outbreak in Queensland. To reduce this risk, policies must be swiftly implemented and quarantine rates must be high. This is a key component to preventing SCT in Queensland.