School of Mathematics and Statistics - Research Publications
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ItemRapid assessment of the risk of SARS-CoV-2 importation: case study and lessons learned(ELSEVIER, 2022-03-04)During the early stages of an emerging disease outbreak, governments are required to make critical decisions on how to respond, despite limited data being available to inform these decisions. Analytical risk assessment is a valuable approach to guide decision-making on travel restrictions and border measures during the early phase of an outbreak. Here we describe a rapid risk assessment framework that was developed in February 2020 to support time-critical decisions on the risk of SARS-CoV-2 importation into Australia. We briefly describe the context in which our framework was developed, the framework itself, and provide an example of the type of decision support provided to the Australian government. We then report a critical evaluation of the modelling choices made in February 2020, assessing the impact of our assumptions on estimated rates of importation, and provide a summary of "lessons learned". The framework presented and evaluated here provides a flexible approach to rapid assessment of importation risk, of relevance to current and future pandemic scenarios.
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ItemCOVID-19 in low-tolerance border quarantine systems: Impact of the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2(AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE, 2022-04-01)In controlling transmission of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the effectiveness of border quarantine strategies is a key concern for jurisdictions in which the local prevalence of disease and immunity is low. In settings like this such as China, Australia, and New Zealand, rare outbreak events can lead to escalating epidemics and trigger the imposition of large-scale lockdown policies. Here, we develop and apply an individual-based model of COVID-19 to simulate case importation from managed quarantine under various vaccination scenarios. We then use the output of the individual-based model as input to a branching process model to assess community transmission risk. For parameters corresponding to the Delta variant, our results demonstrate that vaccination effectively counteracts the pathogen's increased infectiousness. To prevent outbreaks, heightened vaccination in border quarantine systems must be combined with mass vaccination. The ultimate success of these programs will depend sensitively on the efficacy of vaccines against viral transmission.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableAssessing the risk of spread of COVID-19 to the Asia Pacific region( 2020)During the early stages of an emerging disease outbreak, governments are required to make critical decisions on how to respond appropriately, despite limited data being available to inform these decisions. Analytical risk assessment is a valuable approach to guide decision-making on travel restrictions and border measures during the early phase of an outbreak, when transmission is primarily contained within a source country. Here we introduce a modular framework for estimating the importation risk of an emerging disease when the direct travel route is restricted and the risk stems from indirect importation via intermediary countries. This was the situation for Australia in February 2020. The framework was specifically developed to assess the importation risk of COVID-19 into Australia during the early stages of the outbreak from late January to mid-February 2020. The dominant importation risk to Australia at the time of analysis was directly from China, as the only country reporting uncontained transmission. However, with travel restrictions from mainland China to Australia imposed from February 1, our framework was designed to consider the importation risk from China into Australia via potential intermediary countries in the Asia Pacific region. The framework was successfully used to contribute to the evidence base for decisions on border measures and case definitions in the Australian context during the early phase of COVID-19 emergence and is adaptable to other contexts for future outbreak response.