Professor Forecasts Australia’s Coronavirus Peak

Australia’s COVID-19 epidemic is forecast to peak in two weeks’ time with a total of 8000 to 10,000 cases, University of Sydney modelling shows.

If 90 per cent of the population adopts social distancing, the spread of COVID-19 in Australia could be controlled by July 2020, said University of Sydney Professor Mikhail Prokopenko.   “The model updated with most recent data shows that Australia is very close to the incidence peak, and in two weeks’ time may be approaching the prevalence peak,” Professor Propenko said.   “Our research shows that if we continue with current social distancing measures the total number of people who will contract COVID-19 over the course of the pandemic in Australia could be about 8,000 – 10,000 people,” he said.  

 

The research predicts the number of new daily cases will begin to steadily reduce from now on however, the number of all “active” cases may keep rising until mid-April, and then start to slowly decline.   Last week professor Propenko warned unless 8 in ten Australians adopted isolation measures staying at home except for a once a week supermarket trip it would be hard to control the virus.   He said if 80 per cent of Australians complied with social distancing rules the virus could be contained within three months.