Australia's National Plan to relax COVID-19 restrictions puts too many lives at risk and could hamper thousands more Australians with ongoing illness, according to new modelling.
A team of researchers examined the National Plan to reduce restrictions once enough adults are vaccinated.
Dr Zoë Hyde from from The University of Western Australia Professor Quentin Grafton from The Australian National University, and Professor Tom Kompas from the University of Melbourne, argued that at least 90 per cent of all Australians, including children, must be vaccinated against COVID-19 before fully relaxing public health measures and opening the international border.
Under the National Plan, once more than 80 per cent of adults receive two doses of COVID-19 vaccines, equivalent to approximately 65 per cent of the total population, the nation will "manage COVID-19 consistent with public health management of other infectious diseases."
Dr Hyde from UWA's Medical School said the consequences of prematurely and fully relaxing public health measures to suppress COVID-19, even after vaccinating 80 per cent of adults, would likely be irreversible, and unacceptable to many Australians.
Even if the country achieves the four steps we are calling for, fully relaxing public health measures to eliminate community transmission could still, eventually, result in some 5,000 fatalities and 40,000 cases of long COVID.
Dr Zoë Hyde
"For all these reasons and more, it's simply too dangerous to treat COVID-19 like the flu. We also can't forget about our children, who can get very sick from this virus and need protection before we open up."
Professor Grafton said the new modelling showed we simply could not afford to manage COVID-19 the same as other infectious diseases, both in terms of lives and long-term illness from COVID.
"We found substantial morbidity and mortality is likely to occur if the Australian Government sticks to the National Plan," Professor Grafton said.
"Our modelling shows if 70 per cent of Australians over 16 years of age are fully vaccinated, with a 95 per cent vaccination level for those aged 60 years and over, there could eventually be some 6.9 million symptomatic COVID-19 cases, 154,000 hospitalisations, and 29,000 fatalities.
"And assuming 80 per cent vaccination coverage for only those over 16, as per the National Plan, there could be approximately 25,000 fatalities and some 270,000 cases of long COVID.
"In contrast, and if children are also fully vaccinated, national fatalities – for all age groups – would be reduced to 19,000 with 80 per cent adult vaccination coverage. This would fall to 10,000 at a 90 per cent adult vaccination coverage.
"Children also directly benefit from vaccination. If we could achieve 75 cent vaccination coverage among children and adolescents, we could prevent 12,000 hospitalisations in these age groups."
The researchers argue four key steps must be taken before "exposing Australians to uncontrolled COVID-19".
These included:
- vaccinating both children and adolescents;
- reaching 95 per cent full vaccination among people 60 and older as well as other vulnerable groups, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders;
- giving an mRNA booster shot to all Australians vaccinated with AstraZeneca, as well as a booster shot to those vaccinated with an mRNA vaccine, when appropriate;
- and reaching more than 90 per cent vaccination coverage among all Australians.
The modelling is available online as a pre-print publication and an analysis article on the findings and proposed four-step national COVID-19 response by the researchers is available at Policy Forum.
