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Several prominent epidemiologists have warned that Australia could face a deadly surge of the COVID-19 pandemic, similar to that underway throughout much of Europe and in other Indo-Pacific countries where governments have overturned previous safety measures.
The critical comments and studies come as Australian governments, Labor and Liberal-National, state and federal, continue their race to dispense with basic mitigation measures as they try to force the population to “live with the virus.”
Australian states have collectively recorded more than 58,000 new cases of Covid in the past week.
Prof. Nicola Spurrier, South Australia’s Chief Public Health Officer, said:
New South Wales recorded 19,800 new cases in the past seven days, Victoria had 16,636 new cases, and Western Australia recorded more than 8,000. South Australia had 6,867 new cases in the past week, Queensland recorded 5,828, and the ACT and NT had 1,194 and 369 new cases respectively.
The subvariants are all “different” from each other, it is being reported that this is a “soup” of Omicron variants, including BA.5, BA.2.75, XBB, and BQ.1.
Prof. Adrian Esterman from the University of South Australia, says we’re now seeing new variants arriving in Australia – ones that are more transmissible and can easily evade our immune response.
he Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) recommends people aged 50 to 64 years old receive a fourth dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
Adults aged between 30 and 49 are also eligible to receive a winter booster. While people aged 5 or older who are severely immunocompromised should get the fourth dose three months after their third dose. People aged 16 and over need to have had three doses to maintain an “up to date” status. Children aged five to 15 can only get two doses.
Health department data shows the proportion of Australians with a fourth vaccine dose is about 42.1%.
