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Current evidence from around the world is that the earlier stronger social distancing measures are implemented (and with a carrot and stick approach) the greater the likelihood of controlling the COVID-19 spread throughout the community; to do otherwise is risking collapse of our health service and the breakdown of COVID-19 management.

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China and South Korea successfully implemented such strong social distancing measures and Australia is currently at the same point of the COVID-19 infection curve (the steepest rise in exponential growth and a very short doubling time) as China and South Korea when they took such action. As Government is aware, the doubling time is approximately every 1.6 days in Australia, compared to 6 days in February. The reduction in doubling time is an indicator that the window for proactive intervention is very small.

At this current rate Australia could theoretically expect over 6,000 cases by the end of next week and over 50,000 cases by Easter.

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Many of the cases that have occurred in Australia are reported to have been brought in by international travelers. The Go8 supports the Government (State and Federal) in moving to control this flow through border control, but it should not be assumed that this alone will be sufficient to prevent community spread. We therefore recommend this needs to be supplemented by other measures (as we have seen announced by State Governments on 22 March).

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Currently Australia does not test as widely as Singapore did, nor screen for fever in schools, so cannot af ford to be relaxed about social distancing. Korea took a more targeted approach to social distancing by testing at scale. We could afford to continue and more speedily e ase agreed levels of social distancing if we massive ly increased testing capacity.

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The implementation of an enhanced and coordinated regime of COVID-19 testing provides for Australia to control and manage COVID-19 infections; with the aim of being able to successfully lift the stronger social distancing measures (if epidemic growth does not become uncontrolled) and move, with careful management, back to a social and economic re covery phase faster

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and before Australia can benefit from the development of an effective COVID-19 vaccine. *However, as a nation we s hould ensure that while people are becoming socially distant to combat the spread of COVID-19 they are not becoming socially isolated and/or lonely, particularly for those people who are already struggling.

What is the evidence that national strong social distancing measures is the best response and why now?

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The

only two countries to demonstrate “flattening of the curve” to date are

China and South Korea taken when their

“case doubling” was at a similar point to where Australia’s is now.

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