SYDNEY: In the midst of a huge epidemic, authorities advised people to wear masks indoors and receive booster shots right once as the number of Australians admitted to hospitals with COVID-19 approached record highs on Wednesday. They also asked employers to permit employees to work from home.
Over 300,000 cases of the highly transmissible novel subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 have been reported in Australia over the previous seven days, despite warnings from officials that the true number of cases may be twice that. The 50,000 cases on Tuesday were the most in the past two months.Australia’s Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly told ABC Radio on Wednesday that “we need to do some things differently, at least for a short period of time,” predicting that the number of people visiting hospitals will soon reach an all-time high.”We know that one of the most important factors in preventing what we refer to as macro spreading is working from home.”
According to official data, there are currently 5,300 Australians in hospitals with COVID-19, which is not far off from the record 5,390 patients hospitalised with BA.1 in January. Queensland, Tasmania, and Western Australia have already experienced their greatest pandemic-related numbers.
Kelly clarified, however, that he had not advocated the reinstatement of mask requirements or any other limitations.
After more workers started calling in sick, Australia reintroduced support payments last week for casual workers who must quarantine due to COVID-19. The health system is already under stress since many frontline healthcare providers are ill or isolated.Authorities have additionally warned that a delay in booster shot administration could exacerbate the current health problem.
95 percent of adults over 16 have received two doses so far, which has helped limit Australia’s overall COVID-19 cases under 9 million and its COVID-19 deaths at 10,845, much below many other nations. However, only 71% of people have had three or more doses.
