Canberra records 33 new COVID cases - The Canberra Times

COVID vaccinations will become mandatory for some ACT healthcare workers as health authorities announce 33 new cases in Canberra, and as 14 patients fight the coronavirus in hospital. Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said vaccinations would be mandatory for healthcare workers with the highest risk of coming into contact with the virus, as the government attempts to prevent infections. Six of Canberra's new COVID cases were in quarantine for all of their infectious period, and 14 had spent part of the period in the community. Twenty-eight cases have been linked to previous cases and exposure sites, and five are still under investigation. Chief health officer Kerryn Coleman said the end of lockdown remained in sight, but things could change quickly. "I would really like our case numbers to be as low as we can keep them as we progress," she said. Dr Coleman said she didn't expect cases in the teens, but that she'd made a commitment to everyone to do everything to make sure lockdown could end on October 15. She also announced ACT health authorities would change how they reported the virus numbers, focusing on cases with higher risk of transmitting COVID to others in the community. Ms Stephen-Smith said ACT health workers affected by the vaccine mandate would be required to have their first dose by October 29, and their second vaccination by December 1. The mandatory vaccination requirements will apply to staff who have the highest risk of coming into contact with people who have COVID, frontline healthcare workers in hospitals, in any healthcare facility operated by Canberra Health Services, and in day hospitals, hospices, ambulance services and other patient transport. "Healthcare workers have higher rates of potential exposure to COVID-19 as they provide care to COVID-19 patients," Ms Stephen-Smith said. "To those who may have COVID and be unaware of it and present to healthcare settings for other reasons, vaccinating healthcare workers is the most effective way to protect them against the virus, while also reducing the transmission to patients, other staff and the wider community. "Making vaccination mandatory in these settings is an added layer of protection for workers, patients and the community." Ms Stephen-Smith said the decision reflected the government's assessment of the risk of infection for healthcare workers in the ACT, rather than any particular trend it had observed. A survey this month showed 80 per cent of healthcare workers reported being at least partially vaccinated, and 73 per cent had been fully vaccinated. Ms Stephen-Smith expected the numbers of staff who would not follow the mandate, and would not be vaccinated, would be "incredibly low" and that the requirement would have "very small if any" impact on the healthcare workforce. The government will consult the affected health workers, and will consider a phased approach to mandatory vaccinations for workers in other healthcare settings, she said. Fourteen patients are in hospital with COVID-19 in Canberra and five of these are in intensive care. Three of the patients are on ventilation. Ten of the hospital patients were unvaccinated and four had received one dose of vaccine. The ACT has 384 active cases of the coronavirus. Dr Coleman said the ACT remained on track to meet its reopening date targets but urged people to follow COVID restrictions. She also said people needed to get tested sooner after developing symptoms. The percentage of people waiting two or more days after symptoms to get tested was 40 per cent. One in 10 COVID cases had waited five or more days, and in the last week, some cases had delayed testing for 10-13 days. "These statistics are going in the wrong direction," Dr Coleman said. "Things can change very quickly in the world of COVID, as we have seen, and if we don't maintain our COVID-safe behaviours, then this may happen. We need to be getting tested at the first sign of symptoms. "We must actually now stay the course, we have to be vigilant. We must continue to follow these public health directions until the current lockdown restrictions rise on October 15." Asked what number of new daily cases might prompt ACT Health to revise reopening dates, Dr Coleman said factors it considered included the level of unlinked cases, transmission in reduced risk settings, and vaccination coverage. However she said the pace of the ACT's vaccination take-up was heartening as the territory prepared to reopen. "That is pleasingly reducing my anxiety levels quite significantly about being able to progress through our lockdown steps," Dr Coleman said. "I would really like our case numbers to be as low as we can keep them as we progress to our next stage." She repeated a previous warning that the ACT would not see daily case numbers below 20 again in the pandemic. "Hopefully they won't go too over 50 by the time we get to the easing of our lockdown." Dr Coleman said the ACT's health authorities were changing their reporting of COVID cases, focusing on cases that may pose a risk of transmitting the virus to others in the community. ACT Health would change how it was managing the virus in Canberra, based on international and national experience, as the territory eased restrictions. She said that Canberra had seen a large increase in case numbers this week - including two consecutive days of 52 cases - and that the percentage of tests that were positive for COVID-19 had grown from 2 per cent to 7 per cent. "This helps to tell us that there is actually a true increase in cases, and it's not just due to potentially an increase in testing. "This is real, we have seen more cases over the last week." Seventy per cent of the cases in this period had been tested because they were close or household contacts of people with COVID-19. Health authorities had also identified several clusters where transmission occurred, and close contacts of cases tested positive in the same week. "What this is suggesting is that more recently, cases have transmitted the virus to more close or household contacts. "This may reflect our slightly relaxed social conditions and increasing movement in community or household visits." Dr Coleman has previously signalled changes to the contact tracing system as the territory moves towards accepting "a degree of community transmission". "We are looking at, as we have alluded to, what some of our processes might be when our numbers do increase, and we have started very seriously being able to implement that if need be," she said at Sunday's COVID-19 press conference. "Moving forward, we won't be able to, or there won't actually be any benefit in picking up every single case, and actually going out and identifying every single contact." Dr Coleman said on Monday it would mean fewer exposure locations will be published in the coming months. "Those monitor and casual sites will become less important as our focus ... switches from trying to find every case to really trying to find those ones where we know they'll have a bigger impact." The ACT is also considering having people fill out online forms when they test positive, rather than contact tracers conducting phone interviews. MORE COVID-19 NEWS: Chief Minister Andrew Barr on Monday announced two women in their 80s had died from COVID-19 overnight. One was a resident of Calvary Haydon receiving end of life care, fully vaccinated. Another woman was admitted to Canberra Hospital on Friday night, where she received palliative care for COVID-19 and other issues. READ MORE: Our coverage of the health and safety aspects of this outbreak of COVID-19 in the ACT and the lockdown is free for anyone to access. However, we depend on subscription revenue to support our journalism. If you are able, please subscribe here. If you are already a subscriber, thank you for your support. You can also sign up for our newsletters for regular updates. Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content:

COVID vaccinations will become mandatory for some ACT healthcare workers as health authorities announce 33 new cases in Canberra, and as 14 patients fight the coronavirus in hospital.

Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said vaccinations would be mandatory for healthcare workers with the highest risk of coming into contact with the virus, as the government attempts to prevent infections.

Six of Canberra's new COVID cases were in quarantine for all of their infectious period, and 14 had spent part of the period in the community.

Twenty-eight cases have been linked to previous cases and exposure sites, and five are still under investigation.

Chief health officer Kerryn Coleman said the end of lockdown remained in sight, but things could change quickly.

"I would really like our case numbers to be as low as we can keep them as we progress," she said.

Dr Coleman said she didn't expect cases in the teens, but that she'd made a commitment to everyone to do everything to make sure lockdown could end on October 15.

She also announced ACT health authorities would change how they reported the virus numbers, focusing on cases with higher risk of transmitting COVID to others in the community.

Mandatory jabs

Ms Stephen-Smith said ACT health workers affected by the vaccine mandate would be required to have their first dose by October 29, and their second vaccination by December 1.

The mandatory vaccination requirements will apply to staff who have the highest risk of coming into contact with people who have COVID, frontline healthcare workers in hospitals, in any healthcare facility operated by Canberra Health Services, and in day hospitals, hospices, ambulance services and other patient transport.

"Healthcare workers have higher rates of potential exposure to COVID-19 as they provide care to COVID-19 patients," Ms Stephen-Smith said.

"To those who may have COVID and be unaware of it and present to healthcare settings for other reasons, vaccinating healthcare workers is the most effective way to protect them against the virus, while also reducing the transmission to patients, other staff and the wider community.

"Making vaccination mandatory in these settings is an added layer of protection for workers, patients and the community."

Ms Stephen-Smith said the decision reflected the government's assessment of the risk of infection for healthcare workers in the ACT, rather than any particular trend it had observed.

A survey this month showed 80 per cent of healthcare workers reported being at least partially vaccinated, and 73 per cent had been fully vaccinated.

Ms Stephen-Smith expected the numbers of staff who would not follow the mandate, and would not be vaccinated, would be "incredibly low" and that the requirement would have "very small if any" impact on the healthcare workforce.

The government will consult the affected health workers, and will consider a phased approach to mandatory vaccinations for workers in other healthcare settings, she said.

Fourteen patients are in hospital with COVID-19 in Canberra and five of these are in intensive care. Three of the patients are on ventilation.

Ten of the hospital patients were unvaccinated and four had received one dose of vaccine. The ACT has 384 active cases of the coronavirus.

'This is real, we have seen more cases'

Dr Coleman said the ACT remained on track to meet its reopening date targets but urged people to follow COVID restrictions.

She also said people needed to get tested sooner after developing symptoms. The percentage of people waiting two or more days after symptoms to get tested was 40 per cent. One in 10 COVID cases had waited five or more days, and in the last week, some cases had delayed testing for 10-13 days.

"These statistics are going in the wrong direction," Dr Coleman said.

"Things can change very quickly in the world of COVID, as we have seen, and if we don't maintain our COVID-safe behaviours, then this may happen. We need to be getting tested at the first sign of symptoms.

"We must actually now stay the course, we have to be vigilant. We must continue to follow these public health directions until the current lockdown restrictions rise on October 15."

Asked what number of new daily cases might prompt ACT Health to revise reopening dates, Dr Coleman said factors it considered included the level of unlinked cases, transmission in reduced risk settings, and vaccination coverage.

However she said the pace of the ACT's vaccination take-up was heartening as the territory prepared to reopen.

"That is pleasingly reducing my anxiety levels quite significantly about being able to progress through our lockdown steps," Dr Coleman said.

"I would really like our case numbers to be as low as we can keep them as we progress to our next stage."

She repeated a previous warning that the ACT would not see daily case numbers below 20 again in the pandemic.

"Hopefully they won't go too over 50 by the time we get to the easing of our lockdown."

Focus on high risk cases

Dr Coleman said the ACT's health authorities were changing their reporting of COVID cases, focusing on cases that may pose a risk of transmitting the virus to others in the community.

ACT Health would change how it was managing the virus in Canberra, based on international and national experience, as the territory eased restrictions.

She said that Canberra had seen a large increase in case numbers this week - including two consecutive days of 52 cases - and that the percentage of tests that were positive for COVID-19 had grown from 2 per cent to 7 per cent.

"This helps to tell us that there is actually a true increase in cases, and it's not just due to potentially an increase in testing.

"This is real, we have seen more cases over the last week."

Seventy per cent of the cases in this period had been tested because they were close or household contacts of people with COVID-19. Health authorities had also identified several clusters where transmission occurred, and close contacts of cases tested positive in the same week.

"What this is suggesting is that more recently, cases have transmitted the virus to more close or household contacts.

"This may reflect our slightly relaxed social conditions and increasing movement in community or household visits."

"We are looking at, as we have alluded to, what some of our processes might be when our numbers do increase, and we have started very seriously being able to implement that if need be," she said at Sunday's COVID-19 press conference.

"Moving forward, we won't be able to, or there won't actually be any benefit in picking up every single case, and actually going out and identifying every single contact."

Dr Coleman said on Monday it would mean fewer exposure locations will be published in the coming months.

"Those monitor and casual sites will become less important as our focus ... switches from trying to find every case to really trying to find those ones where we know they'll have a bigger impact."

The ACT is also considering having people fill out online forms when they test positive, rather than contact tracers conducting phone interviews.

MORE COVID-19 NEWS:

One was a resident of Calvary Haydon receiving end of life care, fully vaccinated.

Another woman was admitted to Canberra Hospital on Friday night, where she received palliative care for COVID-19 and other issues.

READ MORE:

Our coverage of the health and safety aspects of this outbreak of COVID-19 in the ACT and the lockdown is free for anyone to access. However, we depend on subscription revenue to support our journalism. If you are able, please subscribe here. If you are already a subscriber, thank you for your support. You can also sign up for our newsletters for regular updates.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content:

ACT Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith. Picture: Karleen Minney

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