Thread by @drvyom

With 6 days of zero cases, its stupid to assume Vic has achieved elimination. But 1-2 weeks from now, if we find ourselves staring at a line of donuts on the calendar, it'd be stupid to rule it out. At this point National Cabinet may want to reconsider the #covid19aus strategy.

Now, some would say they already should consider it, but I have very low expectations of our federal government.

'Wouldn't elimination mean doing the same thing we've already done?' I'd say yes and no, \mostly no. We could have a national standardised approach to #testtraceisolate & thoroughly reassess Infection Prevention Control in high risk settings (factories/food/health/aged services)

I suppose what really changes here is that any increase in effort to control #covid19aus will now have a disproportionate payoff. The difference between having 20 cases nationally at any given time (a very small number) versus 0 cases for 3 weeks is enormous imo.

If we end up tantalizingly close to elimination (which I admit is unlikely) it might finally give our governments the motivation to get their shit together.
If it fails, boohoo. We end up with world class nationally standardised #testtraceisolate and infection prevention/control

Does this necessarily entail lockdowns for NSW? not necessarily IMO (i'm not sure). it might just mean several weeks of hyperaggressive cluster management + upstream contact tracing assisted with antibody testing (which I believe nsw has been doing at times!)

To be clear, I think it's quite unlikely we'll be staring at a continuous line of donuts in 1 week and VERY unlikely in 2 weeks.
But the argument still stands if we get zero community transmission for the next few weeks (which is still unlikely imo)