When the nation needed innovative solutions to COVID challenges, these officials came through

The COVID honour roll was expanded with 43 additional federal, state and territory officials awarded the medal on January 26 for contributions that helped the nation deal with the pandemic.

Chloe Burns was working in the federal Health department's economics division and when the pandemic began and realised she might be able to pivot the influenza disease spread model she was developing for a PhD.

"When COVID happened I just took it on as my own little initiative, 'I wonder if we can build a COVID disease spread model'," she said.

Her work involved thousands of lines of code for a highly technical model designed by her that could be used as a "sanity check" internally in the department so the officially released Doherty Institute advice could be contestable.

The model also helped with providing more frequent reporting to national cabinet of projected hospital admissions and demands on intensive care units.

Ms Burns also designed and developed the Australian vaccine allocation model which was later deployed by a multidisciplinary team of analysts.

This robust analytical modelling contributed to Australia's low rates of infection and death, as stated by the citation for her public service medal.

"Pandemic preparedness is actually data preparedness, asking how can we form these critical decision-making metrics with data," she said.

"For influenza or any health or social policy issue, it is in our best interest to be developing that evidence base for how we manage potential threats in the future."

Javier Ribalta was awarded a public service medal for his leadership of the COVID vaccination readiness initiative within Services Australia's existing Australian Immunisation Register.

That initiative delivered a new way of making vaccine status available digitally, regardless of whether the person has a Medicare card, via their myGov account and state and territory government check-in apps.

"I feel proud when I see people referring to the certificate, because that was a fundamental underlying piece to allow the reopening of borders and support the economy," he said.

Another recipient of the medal oversaw many COVID response measures as a deputy secretary in the federal Finance department, but a critical "sliding doors" moment when Andrew Jaggers stepped away from that role.

He did so to ensure Australia would have emergency quarantine housing facilities if they became necessary, at the request of several state governments.

Mr Jaggers described going "offline" to create a specialised team that organised the construction of the hybrid facilities that were part hotel, part health facility and with security features so people don't leave when they aren't allowed to.

The first 1000-bed facility in Melbourne went from idea to reality within six-months with construction underway 24-hours a day due to the uncertainty of the situation. They also completed facilities in Perth and Brisbane.

"It was a really great team in Finance, with a lot of private sector people and government people, managing contractors like Multiplex and designers, a multi multifaceted team and a great experience," he said.

Mr Jaggers' medal was also granted for overseeing negotiations with medicines manufacturer CSL, with Australia Post, and with the voluntary administration of Virgin Australia.

READ ALSO: Liz Cosson: 'We would not have survived COVID without the public service'

A contingent of ACT public servants were also recognised with medals for COVID-related work, particularly during the lockdown in the second half of 2021.

Many were recognised for roles in Canberra Health Services, including Ian Marr, Andrew Murphy and Catherine O'Neill.

Chief health officer Kerryn Coleman and her deputy Vanessa Johnston were among those in central coordination roles recognised, along with Leesa Croke for leading the territory's whole of government response, Vanessa Dal Molin for overseeing intergovernmental relations during the response, and Toby Keene leading the COVID response branch in ACT Health.

Trish Johnston has picked up the medal for making hard decisions and having difficult conversations to transition the public information coordination centre, which was designed for short-term emergencies, into a tool that could continue to function while living with COVID for years.

Ms Johnston who came into the role of public information coordinator just before the 2021 lockdown, knew that misinformation and uncertainty would be "our enemies" as the lockdown order was made.

"We were really concerned that we needed to be transparent, to be really authentic, to let people know what we did know, and what we didn't know, and I think the community really appreciated that," she said.

"In the end, I don't think misinformation was the issue in the ACT, but it was important to provide accurate, timely information to counter misinterpretations doing the rounds of the bush telegraph."

Check the full list: Find out who received an Australian Honour