Observations on the current outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta Variant in Sydney

Authors

  • Rick Nunes-Vaz Flinders University
  • C Raina Macintyre University of New South Wales

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.31646/gbio.121

Keywords:

Covid-19, coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, epidemic, pandemic, infectious disease, Delta variant

Abstract

Sydney, Australia, is currently experiencing an outbreak of the Delta variant of Covid-19. The Delta variant is much more transmissible than the original ‘wild’ variant of SARS-CoV-2, which was responsible for Australia’s first wave of infections, and for the second wave largely confined to Melbourne in mid-2020. Our purpose here is to compare growth rates for the current Sydney outbreak with those of the earlier outbreaks, using doubling times as the principal indicator. By such means, it appears that non-pharmaceutical interventions are achieving similar, if not stronger effects in containing Sydney’s Delta-variant outbreak.

Author Biographies

Rick Nunes-Vaz, Flinders University

Rick Nunes-Vaz retired from the Defence Science and Technology (DST) Group in 2016 after a decade leading DST Group’s support to Defence and several of Australia’s national security agencies in strategic risk analysis for resource allocation. He currently works part-time as a Professor with the Torrens Resilience Institute of Flinders University, researching the development of resilience in complex socio-technical systems that have the potential for cascading failure.

C Raina Macintyre, University of New South Wales

Professor Raina MacIntyre (MBBS Hons 1, M App Epid, PhD, FRACP, FAFPHM) is Professor of Global Biosecurity at the Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney. She is a dual-specialist physician with extensive track record in infectious diseases, vaccines and transmission dynamics of pathogens. As Head of the Biosecurity Program, she leads research in epidemiology, vaccinology, bioterrorism prevention, mathematical modelling, public health and clinical trials in infectious diseases. Her research includes personal protective equipment, vaccinology, epidemics of emerging infectious diseases and bioterrorism prevention. She is an expert in emerging infections, influenza epidemiology, adult vaccination, bioterrorism and rapid epidemic intelligence and has led the largest body of research internationally on face masks and respirators in health care workers. She has a 20 year track record in public health control of infectious diseases including vaccinology, surveillance and program design. She has over 370 publications in peer-reviewed journals. Her research is underpinned by extensive field outbreak investigation experience. She is a graduate of the Australian Field Epidemiology Training program and has extensive experience in shoe-leather epidemiology of infectious diseases outbreaks. Her in-depth understanding of the science of outbreak investigation draws from this experience combined with her clinical training as a specialist physician and her academic training through a Masters and PhD in Epidemiology. Her passion for field epidemiology led her to co-found the ARM network for Australian field outbreak response. She also has an interest in the ethics of medicine, and specifically in dual-use research of concern in the fields of synthetic biology and genetic engineering, and the risk this poses to biosecurity. She is on editorial boards for Vaccine, BMJ Open and Epidemiology & Infection, and has served on numerous expert committees including for WHO, IOM and OIE. She was won numerous awards for her research including the Sir Henry Wellcome Medal from the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States, the National Immunisation Award from Public Health Association of Australia, and the Frank Fenner Prize for advanced research in infectious diseases. See: https://research.unsw.edu.au/people/professor-raina-macintyre

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Published

2021-07-06

How to Cite

Nunes-Vaz, R., & Macintyre, C. R. (2021). Observations on the current outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta Variant in Sydney. Global Biosecurity, 3(1). https://doi.org/10.31646/gbio.121

Issue

Vol. 3 (2021)

Section

Rapid Reports and Perspectives From the Field

License

Copyright (c) 2021 The Author(s)

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Received 2021-07-06
Accepted 2021-07-06
Published 2021-07-06