The welcome COVID-19 milestone an epidemiologist thinks Victoria will reach within a week

An epidemiologist says she believes new daily COVID-19 cases in Victoria could consistently fall to double digits within the week.

Chair in epidemiology at Deakin University, Professor Catherine Bennett, told The Age Victoria’s coronavirus reproduction rate is currently at 0.5, according to her calculations.

It comes after the reproduction rate peaked at 3 in early August.

“We’re well below one. We’ve been holding there for quite some time now, probably for two weeks, which is great,” she told Ross and Russel.

“We’re actually seeing a tangible reduction, so every five days or so we’re seeing three quarters of the cases, or less.

“We’re looking on track to get to double figures probably within a week or so.”

Professor Bennett also revealed a legacy behaviour which she thinks will persist in Victoria after COVID-19 — mask-wearing.

“It’s a bit more normalised now so there might be people who choose to do that through cold and flu seasons going ahead,” she said.

“It might be one of those legacy behaviours.”

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