Australia’s Chief Medical Officer Professor Brendan Murphy told a senate inquiry last week that our COVID-19 public health response had avoided about 14,000 deaths.

This is in contrast to his deputy Professor Paul Kelly, who estimated on 16 March that Australia might have 50,000-150,000 deaths, depending on the percentage of Australians infected.

Then, an article by Professors Tony Blakely from the University of Melbourne and Nick Wilson from the University of Otago, NZ, on 23 March used modelling from Imperial College, London, UK, to estimate that even with flattening the curve, there would likely be 25,000-55,000 deaths.

So, it’s reasonable to ask which of these estimates is correct.