After one of the quietest Easter long weekends we have ever enjoyed (or endured, depending on your view), many of us will have reflected on how home isolation and physical distancing has changed our lifestyles.
The majority of Novocastrians have made a wonderful effort to reduce COVID-19's spread, dealing resolutely with the cancellation of sport, social occasions and Easter get-togethers. I consider this a sacrifice of love for our community, a theme that fits well with the Easter season message of love.
Thankfully, this sacrifice has had huge benefits. Together we have markedly slowed the spread of this horrific virus, and we have avoided the early avalanche of cases experienced by other developed countries in Europe and in the US. This smashed their healthcare system and continues to cost an extraordinary number of lives. Our actions have already saved many lives.
We've learned when COVID-19 is permitted to spread relatively unfettered in the community, the number of infections doubles twice every week and this logarithmic growth in cases soon exhausts the ability of public health teams to track and isolate all patients and their close contacts. It also forecasts the massive surge in hospitalisations and deaths that predictably follow.
This past week, the federal government released modelling comparing our current number of cases with the number of infections we would likely be experiencing now if we had not responded as aggressively against this formidable foe. The impact of quarantining returning travellers, finding and isolating COVID-19 cases and their close contacts, distancing ourselves in the community and staying at home except for urgent needs, has delivered us a dramatic slowing of COVID-19 rates rather than the predicted sky-high, uncontrollable spike we would have experienced had our country not taken this approach.
The modelling shows even a relatively small difference in the proportion of our population not complying could have had a devastating impact. If 30 per cent of the community had not complied with the strict social distancing measures, the resulting spread of the virus could have delivered us many thousands of cases and many preventable deaths. The modelling also sounds a very loud warning - if we relax the measures prematurely the virus could undo all our collective good work.
Now that we are winning the battle against the COVID-19 virus, we need to ensure that we do not lose our resolve.
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