Australian Doctors Call For Government To Revive Focus On COVID-19 Pandemic

The Australian Medical Association (AMA) is calling on the Federal Government to focus on the COVID-19 pandemic this winter, warning the upcoming months will be “the worst it has ever been.”

Combined with a deadly fly season, AMA cautioned that the nation’s health system will be overburdened and struggle to keep up with the demand as it also deals with workforce shortages.

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Next week, state and territory leaders will meet and AMA’s president Dr Omar Khorshid told The Guardian that determining a new COVID-19 strategy should be the priority of the meeting.

“The pandemic is not over, and our health system is struggling, partly due to the ongoing effect of the pandemic,” he told The Guardian.

“It is the worst it has ever been … and it will be worse [than last winter] because we will have flu and Covid in every state and territory.

 “You have also got the cumulative effect of ongoing burnout and stress at the frontend for those workers who’ve been doing the heavy lifting [in] hospitals and in primary care."

Meanwhile, Covid cases and hospitalisations across Australia and New Zealand look like this:

Western Australia 

• New cases: 7,174
• Covid-related deaths: 6
• Hospital and ICU admissions: 279 / 16

Northern Territory 

• New cases: 239
• Covid-related deaths: 0
• Hospital and ICU admissions: 13 / 0

Australian Capital Territory 

• New cases: 824   
• Covid-related deaths: 1
• Hospital and ICU admissions: 83 / 1

Queensland 

• New cases: 3,786
• Covid-related deaths: 1
• Hospital and ICU admissions: 301 / 9

New South Wales 

• New cases: 7,551
• Covid-related deaths: 11
• Hospital and ICU admissions: 1,250 / 41

Victoria 

• New cases: 8,025
• Covid-related deaths: 19
• Hospital and ICU admissions: 512 / 21

South Australia 

• New cases: 2,342
• Covid-related deaths: 2
• Hospital and ICU admissions: 235 / 5

Tasmania 

• New cases: 681
• Covid-related deaths: 0
• Hospital and ICU admissions: 31 / 1

New Zealand 

• New cases: 6,927
• Covid-related deaths: 10
• Hospital and ICU admissions: 361 / 9

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