25 Facts About Dion O'Neale

Dion O'Neale is a New Zealand applied mathematician who specialises in the area of complex systems and network science.

Dion O'Neale's work involves the analysis of empirical data to inform computer simulations to predict how interacting parts and structures of networks can affect the dynamics and properties of systems.

Dion O'Neale is a senior lecturer in physics at Auckland University, principal investigator at Te Punaha Matatini and Project Lead of COVID-19 Modelling Aotearoa.

Dion O'Neale completed his MSc at Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf in 2005, and PhD at Massey University in 2009.

Dion O'Neale was a postdoctoral research fellow at La Trobe University in Australia from August 2009 until April 2010, when he returned to New Zealand and joined the Applied Mathematics team at Industrial Research Limited, later known as Callaghan Innovation, in Lower Hutt, where he worked as a research scientist until 2013 when he became a research fellow and later lecturer with the department of physics at Auckland University.

Dion O'Neale has taken lead roles in several New Zealand government-funded research projects and in 2021 became the project lead for a programme called COVID-19 Modelling Aotearoa which initially arose under the leadership of Te Punaha Matatini but is a standalone project hosted by the University of Auckland.

Dion O'Neale is a Project Lead for Contagion Network Modelling within this programme.

Dion O'Neale explained that this mathematical approach originated in materials science and physics but had been previously applied to the epidemiology of disease when models were developed during the spread of Ebola in Africa.

Dion O'Neale said that the model had been useful during the lockdown of Auckland in August 2020 because it modelled the risk of a spread outside of the city and predicted the outcome if there was a change in the response.

Dion O'Neale's conclusion was that "the model proved spot on, offering politicians a degree of confidence on which to base their decisions".

Dion O'Neale acknowledged that there was a strategy by the government to improve ventilation in schools and have a mask mandate, and recommended supporting these measures by bringing in rapid antigen testing.

Dion O'Neale said in the interview that summer had meant schools were closed, people were on holiday and there were more outdoor activities which reduced transmissibility, but "the number of cases were likely to creep up once the immunity provided by the vaccine started to wane a little and people returned to work and schools".

Dion O'Neale said at this time that the numbers of COVID-19 cases could double every three days and modellers were making their predictions based on most of the cases being the Omicron variant which had a fast incubation period and would grow faster than Delta.

Dion O'Neale suggested this change was an acknowledgement that systems to manage the virus needed to change and the plan to shorten home isolation periods and good contact tracing for high risk cases was less restrictive than under previous levels.

On 16 February 2022, after a slight drop in numbers of cases of COVID-19 in New Zealand, Dion O'Neale was one of modellers at Te Punaha Matatini who said that reported case numbers were doubling roughly every three days, with a possible tally in the community of around 4000 before the end of February.

Dion O'Neale explained the lag effect that meant a daily case number was often of cases reported more than a week previously.

Dion O'Neale later confirmed that the case numbers most likely reflected a backlog that had built up over the past week, a time he described as having "very noisy data due to data processing and testing systems being a bit up and down".

Dion O'Neale maintained that a peak in numbers was likely in mid to late March 2022.

Dion O'Neale clarified the importance of New Zealanders getting the booster vaccine shot to reduce the impact of the Omicron variant early in 2022, and said data from the UK had shown that after a booster, there was an increase of 20 percent effectiveness against infection to 60 percent.

Dion O'Neale later agreed with Helen Petousis-Harris and Michael Baker that David Seymour was not following the evidence by suggesting at the time that vaccine mandates could be removed.

Dion O'Neale said that having a booster dose remained the most effective way to protect against hospitalisations, and "asking people with high exposure risk due to their work to be vaccinated still [benefitted] the community".

Dion O'Neale agreed with updating the advice to encourage the wearing of higher quality masks to reduce airborne transmission, but was cautious about people eating and drinking inside and not wearing masks.

When New Zealand recorded more than one million cases of COVID-19 on the 10 May 2022, Dion O'Neale and other modellers said that was an underestimation of infections, which were more likely to have been around three million.

Dion O'Neale noted as many as 30 to 40 percent of infections were asymptomatic, and recommended people take rapid antigen tests as a precaution before going to social events or visiting people who were vulnerable.

Dion O'Neale was part of the team at Te Punaha Matatini that was awarded the 2020 Prime Minister's Science Prize in recognition of their work in developing data-based mathematical models to inform the New Zealand's response to COVID-19.