Covid 19 coronavirus: why Sydney’s New Years Eve celebrations could spell disaster

As Sydney scrambles to contain an outbreak that could cause Christmas, now just days away, to be canceled, leading epidemiologists have warned that it’s time to tune out on New Year’s Eve.

On December 31 in the capital of New South Wales it could present “the mother of all super-spread events”, wrote Professor Raina MacIntyre, an infectious disease expert at the University of New South Wales, in an article for the Sydney Morning Herald on Sunday.

“People infected today and tomorrow may travel to the middle of Sydney for the family Christmas lunch and perhaps another house for dinner, possibly infecting a minimum of 360 new people,” said Professor MacIntyre.

“The 360 ​​people infected on Christmas Day will be at their peak of contagion on New Year’s Eve and could infect more than 1,000 more. We could be seeing 3,000 cases by January 8. You couldn’t plan a disaster any more. perfect if you tried. “

Yet while families’ plans for Christmas Day are at stake, with a decision yet to be made on Wednesday morning, New South Wales Health Minister Brad Hazzard has been adamant that the celebrations, just six days after Christmas, will go on.

“I appreciate the experience of people who are not directly involved in the battle we have been involved in, but our advice comes from our public health team. The government takes that advice and takes advice from other outside epidemiologists,” Hazzard said. to ABC News Breakfast this morning, after being questioned about Professor MacIntyre’s prediction.

“One of those people has not talked to Dr. Chant about all this, but there have been a lot of epidemiologists and virologists, specialists in infectious diseases.

“The other thing that has happened along the line is that the best of the best are on the line every day, usually between 12pm and 2pm and it’s called AHPPC and those are all experts from around the world. country.

“The information that we have is instantly shared every day with all of them and advice is taken on what we should and should not do. Dr. Chant’s advice is in the moment that we proceed as we are.”

Mary-Louise McLaws, adviser and epidemiologist at the World Health Organization (WHO), professor at UNSW, said that “we know” that holidays such as Lunar New Year, Eid, Hanukkah and Christmas “have the potential to accelerate the sprouts “.

“Everyone has. And it’s not just with this particular disease, but this one is particularly problematic because the effective transmission rate is so high,” McLaws told ABC News Breakfast this morning.

He added that he first pointed out the risk of New Year’s Eve in September, writing to the Sydney mayor’s office and urging them to “seriously consider canceling New Year’s Eve.”

“And at that stage, the average number of cases in 14 days was seven, almost eight, and today the average number of cases is five,” McLaws said.

“And that’s a turning point. But it could all be located on the northern beaches and that fencing, hard fencing, not light fencing, hard fencing, not allowing anyone else without a paid point of care to prove, even if they are essential services, it could keep Christmas from being an accelerator

“But certainly New Year’s Eve, sadly, should be canceled this year.”

The New Year’s Eve plans, approved by the New South Wales government in late November, stated that “the vast majority of citizens will not be able to enter the Sydney CBD district.”

Instead, the “premium viewing spots” of a seven-minute fireworks display would be reserved for front-line workers only “to thank them for keeping NSW safe this year.”

“New Year’s Eve is the opportunity for Sydney and New South Wales to shine on the world stage,” said Minister for Employment, Investment and Tourism Stuart Ayres at the time.

“Despite being a smaller celebration than usual, this New Year shows that we are open for business and that New South Wales will bring 2021 with confidence.”

But MacIntyre told news.com.au yesterday that while the current restrictions may be enough to reduce the number of cases, authorities cannot afford to wait and see.

“It is possible that everything can be controlled with the measures they have used but it is not like any other time of year, there are unique and different risks at this time of year,” he said.

“The difference to the Crossroads outbreak (in south-west Sydney) is that we had no way of predicting whether there would be super-spread events where the virus would get out of control, in this case we are 100% certain that there will be two overlapping events: December 25 and December 31 “.