{"id":2373,"date":"2020-04-10T12:34:03","date_gmt":"2020-04-10T05:34:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/illume-emag.com\/?p=2373"},"modified":"2020-04-10T15:37:03","modified_gmt":"2020-04-10T08:37:03","slug":"covid-19-australia-cusp-coronavirus-dying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/covid-19-australia-cusp-coronavirus-dying\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19: Australia ‘on cusp’ of coronavirus dying out"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australia is close to the point at which COVID-19 cases begin to decline and the epidemic could die out in the community, a senior health official has said.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A senior health official says Australia is on the “cusp” of seeing the coronavirus dying out locally but he warned if social distancing measures were relaxed the epidemic could yet explode.<\/p>\n

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Deputy chief medical officer Professor Paul Kelly says the reproductive rate has been somewhere between one and two \u2013 meaning every infected person infects between one and two others.<\/p>\n

“Where you want to be is below one \u2013 so less than one other person being infected after a person themselves has the infection,” Prof Kelly told reporters in Canberra on Friday.<\/p>\n

“Once you get to that point the virus dies out or the epidemic dies out.<\/p>\n

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Professor Kelly today said Australia is on the cusp of coronavirus dying out.Source:AAP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“At the moment we’re probably on the cusp of that in Australia \u2026 whether that’s where we’re going to be in several weeks or months remains to be seen.”<\/p>\n

Prof Kelly stressed “we’re not at that stage yet” and he warned people needed to remain vigilant in the fight to flatten the curve of case numbers.<\/p>\n

Without the social distancing measures currently in place, one positive person could lead to 400 other cases within a month, he said.<\/p>\n

“That is the sort of explosive epidemic we’ve seen in other countries. We just cannot afford, at this stage, to be considering that happening.”<\/p>\n

Asked if allowing international flights into Australia would be the last restriction to be lifted down the track, Prof Kelly noted: “We are an island, of course, and that’s our advantage.”<\/p>\n

Australia’s daily increase in cases fell below 100 on Thursday \u2013 the first time it’s slipped under that threshold for three weeks.<\/p>\n

More than 6100 people in Australia have contracted coronavirus with 54 deaths \u2013 including the latest deaths in NSW, Victoria and Tasmania.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Scott Morrison used his Easter message to drive home the importance of social distancing during a typically festive weekend.<\/p>\n

Drawing on his own faith, Mr Morrison acknowledged this holiday would be vastly different, with online church services and no large family events.<\/p>\n

“For Christians, not being able to gather does not diminish the hope that we have through this important Easter period,” he said in a video message.<\/p>\n

‘This year, we will live out our faith by doing the right thing.<\/p>\n

“That means staying at home, making sure we’re checking on our neighbours and supporting our communities and families, our friends.”<\/p>\n

Federal Opposition leader Anthony Albanese in a statement issued a similar message, imploring Australians to stay home for the sake of community wellbeing.<\/p>\n

He also thanked those working over the weekend on the crisis’ frontline.<\/p>\n

The federal government, meanwhile, has reached an agreement with Qantas for three rescue flights from Peru, Argentina and South Africa for Australians stranded through border closures and lockdowns.<\/p>\n

Those flights are expected next week while a separate government rescue flight returned about 280 Australians from Peru on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Australian independent schools will also be forced to open in term two after the federal government threatened to cut funding.<\/p>\n

Source: News<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australia is close to the point at which COVID-19 cases begin to decline and the epidemic could die out in the community, a senior health official has said. A senior health official says Australia is on the “cusp” of seeing the coronavirus dying out locally but he warned if social distancing measures were relaxed the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2374,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[761],"tags":[1353,1087],"class_list":{"0":"post-2373","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrity-buzz","8":"tag-corona","9":"tag-coronavirus"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}