The professor behind a model provided to the WA government that predicted scores of coronavirus deaths in that state if restrictions are relaxed too soon says the Doherty Institute modelling on which the national reopening plan is based is “perhaps too optimistic”.
University of Western Australia Professor George Milne’s modelling, given to the WA Department of Health a fortnight ago, paints a far more pessimistic picture about what will happen when Australia reopens compared to Doherty Institute modelling commissioned for the national cabinet.The model forecasts 13,390 cases, 1373 hospitalisations and 186 deaths in the six months after WA reopens; big numbers for a state that has recorded just 1088 cases and nine deaths over the entire pandemic.
“It tells you we’re going to have lots of people becoming ill, frankly,” said Professor Milne, a pioneer of agent-based modelling now based at the University of WA. “Our modelling results suggest we need to be about 85 per cent vaccination coverage.”
https://www.watoday.com.au/national/the-covid-models-painting-different-pictures-of-life-after-restrictions-20210910-p58qmp.html
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