Victoria has reached another sad milestone, recording more than 4,000 deaths from COVID since the pandemic began.
Key points:
- Victoria further relaxed its COVID restrictions in late June
- Australia hit 10,000 deaths from COVID over the weekend
- An epidemiologist says deaths can be prevented by encouraging the use of masks and vaccination
Victoria recorded 16 new deaths and 8,740 new cases of the virus.
There are now 543 people hospitalized with COVID-19, of whom 28 are in intensive care and five are breathing.
Over the course of the pandemic, more than 2 million Victorians have contracted and recovered from the virus.
The state only surpassed 3,000 deaths from COVID two months ago, on May 6th.
As of June 24, Victoria relaxed some of the remaining COVID restrictions, meaning that masks should no longer be worn at airports and that mandates for three doses of vaccines no longer apply to work, including teachers and meat and seafood processing workers.
Masks are still mandatory for people eight years of age or older in some settings, including public transportation and health settings such as hospitals.
Sewage tests continue to draw a picture of the situation in Victoria, with the latest data showing that Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants are the dominant strains in major population centers such as Melbourne and Geelong.
In early May, these subvariants were identified in less than 5% of the samples, but as of June 27, they were present in 43.5% of the samples.
Prime Minister Daniel Andrews announced on Tuesday that the state’s pandemic declaration would be extended for another three months.
The framework allows the government to implement COVID-19-related measures that are deemed necessary to protect public health.
The extension will run until October 12.
In recent days, Queensland Health Director John Gerrard said his counterparts across the country had been discussing a return to mask warrants in the face of rising infections.
Australia marked 10,000 deaths from COVID over the weekend.
Clear public health messages could help prevent deaths, the expert says
Deakin University president of epidemiology Catherine Bennett said deaths could still be prevented by focusing on improving vaccination rates and encouraging people to take precautions, such as wearing masks.
He said the data showing that unvaccinated, or only partially vaccinated, people were overrepresented among people who died after contracting COVID were revealing.
“There are still people who are vulnerable and we need to understand what the barriers to vaccination are and help people understand what the risk really is,” he said.
“We’re seeing a higher death toll now than we’ve seen since the big Delta wave or going back to the second wave.”
Professor Bennett said a concerted approach would be effective in understanding why some older people were not yet fully vaccinated and helping to alleviate fears and communicate risk.
“The risk of the vaccine is low, but the risk, especially in older Australians, is very high,” he said.
“And now you really can’t protect yourself from the virus.”
Catherine Bennett says it’s important to focus on why some seniors aren’t fully vaccinated. (ABC News: Peter Drought)
He said having “very clear public health messages” informing people of high infection rates in the community could help change attitudes.
Professor Bennett said the emergence and spread of subvariants had led to sustained high infection rates across the country.
He said “we still don’t know what comes next.”
“It just means we can’t get to the point where you’re on the other side of the wave and everything’s fine,” he said.
“These subvariants continue to deepen the wave.
“It’s like going over the crest of a hill and then there’s another ridge that you can see once beyond that.
“We still have work to do and winter is always the hardest time to manage these types of infections.”
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Posted 2 hours ago Tuesday, July 5, 2022 at 1:43 AM, updated 4 minutes ago, 4 minutes ago, Tuesday, July 5, 2022 at 4:01 AM