Omicron’s unstoppable march: New infections in the thousands by January
Queensland’s health system is bracing for a wave of thousands of new Covid-19 cases by next month as the highly infectious Omicron variant sweeps across the state.
Chief Health Officer Dr John Gerrard said the speed at which the virus is spreading across the state means cases will number in the thousands within weeks.
While the Queensland Government has opted to ease quarantine rules for fully vaccinated close contacts of people who have caught Covid, Dr Gerrard said Omicron was fuelling a doubling of new cases every two days.
Queensland now has 61 confirmed cases of the Omicron variant, a strain of the virus no one in the world had heard of just three weeks ago.
“This is a trend that’s been seen in a number of countries around the world. That’s a very fast rate of transmission of this new variant, the Omicron strain,” he said.
“There is modelling which is being produced now … I can tell you that you can do the maths yourself. If we double cases every 48 hours we will expect thousands of cases in January.”
Confirming that regional towns such as Emerald were experiencing outbreaks of Covid, he said: “You can assume this virus is widespread across Queensland”.
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Across Australia, the rate of new infections is already running at around 4500 a day with Prime Minister Scott Morrison and state and territory leaders set to discuss the nations response at a national cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
“Tomorrow is an opportunity for us to compare notes to get the most recent information,” Morrison said.
“When we last met last Friday week, there was a lot we still didn’t know about Omicron. We know more now.”
But he insisted the time for the “heavy hand of government” had passed and the focus should be on personal responsibility.
He has also accused states of slowing the vaccine rollout amid disruptions to booster supplies.
“Over the last few months, the number of places that the Commonwealth has directly supported in vaccination has increased,” he said.
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“But the states have been pulling theirs back over the last couple of months and it is time to switch those back on.”
More than 1.3 million Australians have received a booster shot. The double-dose vaccination rate for people aged 16 and older is sitting around 90.5 per cent.
States are pushing for a shorter booster shot interval as the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation weighs up cutting the recommended wait time from five months.
Consideration is also being given to whether people will need three doses, not two, to be considered fully vaccinated.
There were fears strict rules on quarantine would end up forcing thousands of Queenslanders into isolation over the Christmas and New Year holiday break.
However, Deputy Premier Steven Miles said that from Wednesday, quarantine periods would be cut from 14 days to seven days for close contacts of those infected, provided they are fully vaccinated.
“That will greatly reduce the impact on individuals as well as on businesses when they have a COVID positive case,” he said.
