AI4Pandemics Talk #8: Rebecca Chisholm, La Trobe University

Title: Contribution of mathematical modelling to COVID-19 response strategies in regional and remote Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities

Zoom Link

Abstract:
The health and science communities recognised early on in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians were likely to be at high risk of COVID-19 infection and severe outcomes, due to high rates of comorbidities associated with severe outcomes, and multiple factors predisposing to increased SARS-CoV-2 transmission. In March 2020, the Australian Government convened the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advisory Group on COVID-19 (IAG), co-chaired by the Department of Health and the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation. The role of the IAG was to develop and deliver a National Management Plan to protect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Our research groups—located at the Doherty Institute, the Kirby Institute and La Trobe University—were commissioned to carry out modelling, under the guidance of the IAG, to help inform aspects of this plan related to regional and remote communities. In this presentation I will describe how we used modelling to address a number of questions of interest to the IAG regarding the importance of a timely response to the first identified case of COVID-19, who should be quarantined and/or tested in communities, and whether there is a role for community-wide lockdown in initial containment.