Australia’s chief health officer: there will be a new outbreak this winter! It is impossible to get rid of COVID-19
Chief Health Officer of Australia:
A new outbreak is expected this winter
We can’t get rid of Novel Coronavirus yet
Translated from the Daily Mail.
According to the Daily Mail on February 2, Paul Kelly, Australia’s Chief Health Officer, predicted that there would be another round of COVID-19 in Australia this winter and that The country would not be free of the novel Coronavirus for some time.
Speaking before the Senate’s Novel Coronavirus Committee on Wednesday, Kelly warned that “the end is not in sight” in terms of the virus and that the country “will not be out of this epidemic for some time”.
“We’re going to have more rounds, and I think we’re going to have another Omicron outbreak in the winter.”
“But because of the promotion of booster shots, the therapies available and the clinical care we have, it’s going to be very different. The way we live with the Novel Coronavirus is changing, it has changed.”
The Senate Novel Coronavirus Committee also learned that nearly three quarters of Novel Coronavirus deaths in Australia have underlying diseases.
Kelly told a parliamentary hearing that 71.2 per cent of novel Coronavirus deaths before October last year had underlying conditions, such as diabetes, lung or heart disease.
Kelly also said the most recent data only went through the end of October 2021 and did not include deaths since the Omicron outbreak began late last year.
More than 3,900 people have died since the outbreak began, half of them in the past two months.
The hearing also heard that when Australia reopened late last year, there was a surge in novel coronavirus infections and that the government had not foreseen the need for PCR tests.
The Deputy secretary of the Ministry of Prime Minister and Cabinet said that while plans were made for the increase in cases, PCR tests required for travel by states had not been taken into account.
“There were a number of factors that were going on, and we certainly didn’t plan for the PCR system to need another 20 percent increase in capacity to meet travel detection needs.” “The previous PCR detection system has significantly increased its detection capacity and has been performing well during peaks and troughs of the pandemic,” Alison Frame told the Novel Coronavirus Commission on Wednesday.
He said no one in the world had modeled how the Omicron variant would spread, and that the increase in suspected cases was still within the PCR system’s rapid-response capacity when restrictions were relaxed.
“Due to the increased reliability of PCR tests, chief medical officers in all jurisdictions have indicated that they will continue to rely on the test.” She said.
Prime Minister Morrison defended the government’s delay in purchasing the rapid antigen test, saying medical advice did not predict that variants of the vaccine would be ineffective.
“Rapid antigen testing is not as good as PCR testing, which is the best test at the Delta variant stage of the virus.” “Omicron changed everything,” he told the press. “No country in the world can avoid Omicron.”
At the same time, medical regulators issued new guidelines for people using rapid antigen tests.
The Australian Drug Agency says you should not eat, drink, smoke or chew gum for 10-30 minutes before collecting saliva samples for rapid testing, as this could lead to incorrect results.
After the peak of the Omicron strain appeared to have passed, the death toll continued to climb, with 27 deaths in NSW, 25 in Victoria, 16 in Queensland and one in South Australia on Wednesday.
NSW had more than 11,800 new cases on Wednesday, Victoria had more than 14,550, Queensland 9,360, South Australia 1,723, Tasmania 666 and the Capital Territory 549.