How to keep COVID waves small

Local businesses have to give explicit instructions on
wearing masks to cover your mouth and nose.

A Monash study reveals Stage 4 started too late to control COVID-19 community transmission, and recommends an early warning system and national mandatory mask wearing.

Associate Professor Lei Zhang, Head of the Artificial Intelligence and Modelling in Epidemiology Program at Monash University’s Melbourne Sexual Health Centre, studied Victoria’s first and second waves of COVID-19 infections and found the Stage 3 restrictions and mandatory mask wearing were introduced too late and led to the prolonged Stage 4 lockdowns.

Lessons from China: Predicting second - and subsequent - waves, and when restrictions can ease

Research from Monash University on the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in China gives important clues into predicting the size and potential causes of second, and subsequent waves and also when restrictions can be lifted once infection rates start to decline.

The data reveal that the first 30 cases may mark a critical threshold for the transition from a slow to a fast-growing phase of the COVID-19 epidemic. Importantly, after a strict city-wide quarantine measure is applied, maintaining a high uptake of mask-wearing and reduced social contacts are essential to enable the epidemic to follow a smooth decline to elimination. However, if mask usage is 50% or less, there are likely to be more outbreaks.

MOU signed between Monash and Xi'an Jiaotong Universities for exchange program

L-R: Professors Yan Hong, Stephen Jane, Robyn Slattery and Associate
Professor Lei Zhang at the MOU ceremony, Xi'an Jiaotong University

Professor Steve Jane, Dean, Sub-Faculty of Translational Medicine and Public Health, with Xi'an Jiaotong University (XJTU) Vice President, Prof Yan Hong at the ceremony, signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for an exchange program between Monash and Xi'an Jiaotong University Health Sciences Centre on 21 October 2019.

Plans for China/Australia sexual health centre gain momentum

by Anne Crawford

Prof. Lei Zhang, earlier in the year at the collaborative meeting
to discuss the new joint centre.

The head of the Central Clinical School, Professor Stephen Jane, will visit China next week to discuss plans for a new joint centre researching sexual health, a collaboration between Monash University and Xi'an Jiaotong University in China (XJTU).

The China-Australia Joint Research Centre for Infectious Diseases will bring together researchers from the Central Clinical School’s Melbourne Sexual Health Centre (MSHC) and School of Public Health, Xi'an Jiaotong University in north-western China.

Professor Jane will meet with Professor Yan Hong, Vice President of Xi'an Jiaotong University, to discuss collaboration between the universities’ faculties of medicine, focussing on the exchange of academic staff and students, and possible joint programs.