简体中文
The Australian government has released the modelling behind its response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy released the modelling on Tuesday afternoon following a four-hour meeting of the National Cabinet, which is comprised of Morrison and state and territory leaders.
It revealed that there would have been demand for 35,000 intensive care unit (ICU) beds -- 15.9 times more than the 2,200 available in Australia if governments had not implemented quarantine and social distancing measures.
"The purpose of this data is to show these measures have had a substantial downward effect," he said. "With social distancing, we know we can meet the ICU demand," said Murphy.
"The most important message from these models is that we know the tools we are using do work and we can scale them up and down as necessary."
According to the Department of Health, there had been 5,844 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Australia as of Tuesday morning, an increase of 1.7 percent from Monday morning.
The national death toll has risen to 45 after two new deaths in New South Wales, one in Victoria and the first in South Australia.
Fewer than 100 patients are in ICUs and less than half of those currently require ventilators.
Morrison said the modelling would eventually help the cabinet relax social distancing restrictions, but now is not the time to do so.
"The lesson is simple. We must continue to do what we have been doing. There is quite a journey ahead, so we must continue to adapt."
Despite the significant progress that has been made flattening the curve of infections, Morrison said it could all be undone during the upcoming four-day Easter long weekend, a time when many Australians usually take holidays.
"Failure to do so this weekend would completely undo everything we have achieved so far together -- and potentially worse."
Murphy confirmed that more Australian-specific data is currently being created but is not yet ready to be shared.
