National pandemic exit plan modelling doesn’t examine what happens after restrictions are eased

National cabinet’s pandemic exit strategy only considered modelling for the “transition” phase over the next six months, with the Doherty Institute yet to consider how relaxed restrictions will affect transmission in the community. The federal government on Tuesday released the modelling that underpinned the updated four-phase roadmap announced on Friday, with the research highlighting the need for a “strategic shift” to targeting young adults who were most likely to transmit the virus. But the Doherty Institute’s professor of epidemiology, Jodie McVernon, said the centre had only considered the best strategy for the next six months, with the external environment too uncertain to consider anything beyond that point.