Page 2128 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 2 August 2022
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if you are staff or a visitor entering a high-risk setting; when you provide a service to a person with a disability or through in-home and community aged care; and on flights into and out of Canberra airport. While not otherwise mandatory, the ACT government strongly encourages Canberrans to continue to wear face masks when attending busy indoor settings, where physical distancing may not always be possible.
In early July 2022, the AHPPC also provided advice on appropriate health protection measures to support the community. This advice noted that the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants are associated with increased immune escape, which was likely to see rates of reinfection rise among individuals who had previously been infected with an earlier variant, and those who are up to date with their vaccinations. As reinfections could occur as early as 28 days after recovery from a previous infection, the advice from AHPPC noted that the reinfection period should be reduced from 12 weeks to 28 days.
As such, people who test positive for COVID-19 more than 28 days after their clearance from isolation should be reported and managed as a new case. The updated advice on the reinfection period was applied from 11.59 pm on 11 July in the ACT, through an amendment to the Public Health (Diagnosed People and Household Contacts) Emergency Direction.
Over the past month, our public hospitals have experienced their highest number of COVID-19 hospitalisations to date, peaking at 171 in patients in July. Increased COVID-19 related hospitalisations and the continued impact of workforce pressures is placing hospitals across the country under enormous strain.
Canberra Health Services is working productively with its private hospital and residential aged care partners to increase patient flow between facilities, where appropriate. While the numbers are small and care is being taken in this process, this is helping Canberra Health Services to create capacity so that acute hospital care can be provided at sites where we are seeing the bulk of COVID-19 admissions.
The Garran Surge Centre continues to provide much needed capacity for the health system. The COVID-19 clinic has seen a strong and sustained level of presentations of COVID-19 positive patients in need of non-urgent face-to-face health care. This important clinic is taking pressure off the Emergency Department without diverting ED resources. In addition, the surge centre continues to function effectively and efficiently as one of Canberra’s public COVID-19 testing sites.
Mr Assistant Speaker, encouragingly, hospitalisation rates as a percentage of case numbers continue to fall, as do ICU admissions. From August 2021 to July 2022, there have been more than 170,000 infections documented in the ACT, with a hospitalisation rate of between 0.2 and 0.3 per cent. This rate is much lower than many other developed nations.
This is in no small part due to our high levels of vaccination and strong access to antivirals provided to Canberrans. I would like to remind all Canberrans who think they might be eligible for antiviral treatment, that they should make an appointment with their GP or register with the COVID Care@Home program as soon as they test positive to COVID-19 to ensure timely access to these treatments early in your illness.
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