The Doherty Institute has come under fire for its doomsday Omicron modelling – but this is not the first time its research has copped a major backlash.
The group’s latest Covid modelling leaked on Tuesday said there could be 200,000 cases and 4,000 hospitalisations a day by February if no action was taken to stop the spread of the Omicron strain.
But it was immediately criticised by experts including Professor Peter Collignon who told Daily Mail Australia: ‘I don’t know where they’ve come up with this modelling but it’s not based on any real world data.
According to the Doherty Institute in September, infections nationwide were predicted to peak at about 65,000 per day 85 days after the 80 per cent jab rate was reached, with deaths peaking at about 100 per day after 100 days
Scott Morrison (pictured on Tuesday) has once again found himself playing down Doherty Institute modelling and calling for calm
‘They are assumptions that do not correlate to anything we’ve seen before in summer in any other country.
‘If there were 200,000 cases a day, the whole of Australia would be infected in just a few months. That hasn’t happened anywhere in the world.’
Former deputy chief health officer Nick Coatsworth blasted the leak, saying it would cause undue panic.
‘Whoever leaked the Doherty modelling without context has committed a gross injustice to the Australian people,’ he wrote on Twitter.
There was a similar reaction when the Doherty Institute released its first Covid modelling about the Delta strain back in July.
The research said a six-month outbreak of the Delta strain with minimal restrictions would kill 1,984 Australians if 70 per cent of adults were vaccinated and 1,281 if 80 per cent were double-jabbed.
The same worst case scenario forecasted 393,515 infections and 14,130 hospital admissions, of which 3,084 would be to an intensive care unit, after six months of an outbreak of Delta with minimal rules and 70 per cent of the population fully vaxxed.
Three weeks later, the Institute revised its figures to 1,520 deaths with a 70 per cent jab rate and 980 deaths with 80 per cent double dosed.
It said the revised version on August 10 ‘incorporates previous errata and corrections to data mapping.’
The Institute admitted in the modelling that the estimates were drawn from ‘broad ranges’ because of the ‘uncertainty’ in predicting the virus.
The Institute then tweaked its figures again in September to take into account higher case numbers in NSW and Victoria.
For a medium seeding situation (300 to 1,000 cases) with ‘baseline’ restrictions, partial contact tracing and a 70 per cent full vaccination level, cases nationwide were predicted to peak at about 65,000 per day after 85 days, with deaths peaking at about 100 per day after 100 days.
Doherty Institute modelling (pictured) released in July showed that if an outbreak of the Delta strain lasted for six months with only ‘baseline restrictions’ – which means only minimal density restrictions as in NSW in March 2021 and ‘partial’ Test, Trace, Isolate, and Quarantine effectiveness – then 1,984 Australians would die if 70 per cent of the population were vaccinated and 1,281 would die if 80 per cent were fully-jabbed
The chopping and changing prompted even fellow researchers to discount the accuracy of modelling.
The Burnet Institute’s Allan Saul told the Canberra Times in August: ‘All models are wrong, including the Doherty model. It’s useful but it’s wrong.
‘I’m in awe of what those guys at Doherty did, but my scepticism over the years tells me it is not terribly smart to rely slavishly on what any single model says, least of all mine.’
The Doherty modelling said high death figures would only be reachedif Australia had ‘minimal’ density restrictions and ‘partial’ Test, Trace, Isolate, and Quarantine effectiveness.
A slew of doctors said that scenario was unrealistic, including Professor Gail Matthews, head of infectious diseases at Sydney’s St Vincent’s Hospital.
‘Well I think that is a worst case scenario and I don’t think those things are going to happen,’ Professor Matthews told Fran Kelly, the host of ABC’s RN Breakfast in July.
‘I don’t think we’re going to stop testing and tracing and putting other restrictions in place so that’s a doomsday scenario.
‘Modelling can look at all sorts of scenarios and I don’t think that’s likely to be plausible.’
Aussies queue inside their cars for Covid testing in Bondi, eastern Sydney on Tuesday. NSW and VIC want QLD to ease testing requirements for travelling amid testing delays
Prime Minister Scott Morrison also said the scenario wouldn’t happen because state governments would re-introduce restrictions regardless of vaccination rates.
‘I have no doubt that if such a scenario were to eventuate, then there are additional measures that would be taken to avert those types of outcomes,’ he said in a press conference.
‘In the same way if we had a very aggressive flu strain that was moving in a similar direction that would have similar results then obviously governments would take steps.
‘But the likelihood of that occurring under an 80 per cent vaccination rate or indeed the other figures you have there at 70 per cent is obviously very different.’
Mr Morrison made similar comments on Wednesday after Doherty’s Omicron modelling predicted between 8,000 and 10,000 patients would end up in ICU.
He told Seven News it ‘assumes that nobody does anything, nobody gets boosters… no one exercises common sense.
‘We know, we saw similar numbers at the start of the Covid pandemic, which were never realised.
‘So the Chief Medical Officer and I just want to assure people that those sort of numbers aren’t what we’re expecting. They are extreme case scenarios.’
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