Hugs ok for Christmas but Qld warned to get Covid-ready
Queenslanders have been warned to brace for “thousands” of Covid-19 cases in the coming weeks and significant hospital admissions as the Omicron variant takes hold and as the State on Christmas Eve recorded 589 new cases.
Friday’s case numbers, up 200 from the previous day, come as 30,000 people a day were entering the State from southern hotspots and 32 of the State’s 77 local government areas have recorded positive virus cases since borders opened on December 13.
Authorities pleaded with people to comply with the mask mandate, saying this, combined with vaccinations, was the only way to control the spread of the highly-contagious Omicron strain.
Those refusing to wear masks – about one-third of people – were putting the rest of the population at risk and police have indicated more stringent enforcement is looming if compliance does not improve.
Chief Health Officer Dr John Gerrard said 1365 cases of Covid-19 had been diagnosed since the borders were thrown open and this will rise.
“In the coming weeks we will be seeing large numbers of cases, thousands of cases,” Dr Gerrard said.
He said that whilst the number of people getting severely ill from the virus would be small, large numbers of cases would still translate to a significant number of people with the potential to be a strain on hospitals.
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“The numbers of sick people we are seeing are small but because we expect large numbers of infections because of the very contagious nature of this Omicron variant, it is likely there will be significant numbers of admissions to hospital,” Dr Gerrard said. “This virus is everywhere.”
“The numbers of people we are going to see with this virus in the next few weeks is going to grow very substantially … that will have an impact on the hospitals,” he said.
Of the 110 people currently in hospital in Queensland, only three were being treated for Covid-19 and the remainder were there for other reasons. The state on Friday had more than 1300 active cases of the virus.
Dr Gerrard said masks were critical to stemming the infection rate and he urged outdoor activities for the Christmas break.
But he will still be hugging his mother on Christmas Day.
“I am going to hug my mother. I am not going to say stop that. I think that would be going a little bit too far,” Dr Gerrard said.
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Health Minister Yvette D’Ath launched the State Government’s Covid Care Pathway, a package of online resources to help people get ready and armed to deal with Covid should they get infected.
“Think of it this way Queenslanders. You need to get ready for Covid,” D’Ath said.
“The virus is going to come to every single community in Queensland.”
D’Ath said only about one-third of the population was complying with the recently introduced mask mandate.
“It is not fair to those people who are doing the right thing, for those not wearing their masks, to let everyone down. So please put your masks on.”
D’Ath said there could currently be 100 hospital and health workers in isolation or quarantine due to being a close contact and it was expected that many more frontline workers will need to go offline.
She said plans were in place for how to handle this in regards to critical infrastructure such as power stations and there could be circumstances where some of those workers deemed close contacts could still be allowed to work, including some heath workers.
Currently anyone deemed a close contact must isolate for seven days.
So far, 90.25 per cent of Queenslanders have had one dose of the vaccine and 85.65 per cent are double dosed. Of the 11,315 vaccines administered on Thursday, more than half were a booster.
New South Wales on Friday recorded another 5612 new cases, down from Thursday’s total of 5715 and ending the steep daily upward trajectory of the past week. So far, 382 people are in hospital in NSW, 53 of them in ICU.
And Victoria recorded 2095 cases on Friday and eight deaths. In that State, there are 397 in hospital.
Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt announced early Friday that the booster waiting time would be cut from five months to four from January 4, doubling the eligible number of people to 7.5 million.
And from January 31, the booster waiting will be slashed again, to just three months.
