Page 2744 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 6 October 2021
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restrictions have significantly reduced community transmission. To ensure that the Chief Health Officer, her team and our excellent front-line staff are supported to continue keeping us safe, we are investing almost $65 million in additional public health funding to continue responding to COVID-19. This will mean that our brilliant public health officials have the resources they need to reduce the spread, protect the most vulnerable and ensure that we are able to follow our pathway out of lockdown.
The funding includes funding for a range of staff and operational costs for our contact tracing teams and the public health teams who are protecting us every day; additional funding for COVID testing; additional cleaning for public schools and public transport; quarantine costs; hospital services; communication to the community; and education, engagement and compliance activities.
Together with vaccination program funding, this represents almost $90 million in additional funding to continue on the pathway to a COVID-normal life in the ACT.
We know how important that is. At this time, we continue to have a number of active clusters and over 400 exposure locations.
Transmission is currently linked to early learning centres, several construction sites and residential aged care. The team continues to investigate and respond to the infection of a staff member who works at the Alexander Maconochie Centre.
As of 5 October, there have been a total of 1,038 cases linked to the current ACT outbreak. There are 384 active cases, with 14 COVID patients in hospital, five in intensive care and three requiring ventilation. There are now 649 cases who have recovered linked to this outbreak. The ACT’s total cumulative case number over the whole pandemic is now 1,162. As of 5 October, ACT Health continues to work with just under 1,600 people who have identified as close contacts.
ACT Health is undertaking extensive work to manage high-risk settings affected by outbreaks. As I said in my previous statement, our public health teams have undertaken significant planning to respond to outbreaks, including for vulnerable and high-risk settings such as public housing. We have activated plans in partnership with key agencies and worked to support residents caught in this situation.
ACT Health continues to respond to an aged-care cluster at Calvary Haydon aged care. Sadly, five people with COVID-19 have died in the ACT in recent weeks, four of whom have been residents in aged care. I extend my sympathies and those of the government to these families.
The mitigation strategies being implemented by ACT Health in aged care include on-site in-reach testing at specific locations, quarantine management, case management and contact tracing, and activation of operational protocols and plans. ACT Health has responded to a number of cases linked to the Alexander Maconochie Centre, including a staff member who worked while infectious unknowingly. At this stage, there are no further cases linked to other staff or persons within the facility.
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