Sydney, July 20 (BUS): Australians being admitted to hospitals with COVID-19 are close to record levels.
Authorities urged companies to allow employees to work from home and recommended people wear masks indoors and get booster shots urgently amid a major outbreak, Reuters reported.
Australia is in the grip of a third Omicron wave driven by the new highly transmissible sub-variables, BA.4 and BA.5, with more than 300,000 cases recorded over the past seven days.
Authorities have indicated that the actual numbers could double.
On Tuesday, 50,000 cases were recorded, the highest in two months.
“We need to do some things differently at least for a short period of time,” Australia’s chief medical officer Paul Kelly told ABC Radio on Wednesday, as he predicted the number of people ending up in hospitals would reach an all-time high.
Official data showed that about 5,300 Australians are currently in hospital with COVID-19, not far from the record set in January during the novel coronavirus (BA.1) outbreak of 5,390 Australians.
The numbers in Queensland, Tasmania and Western Australia are already at their highest levels since the pandemic began.
Australia has reinstated support payments to casual workers who have to quarantine due to COVID-19 after more workers began coming into contact with the disease.
Many health workers on the front lines are also ill or in isolation, further straining the health system.
ZHB