Prime Minister Scott Morrison has boldly claimed that lock downs shouldn’t be happening, and that Australia will be “pushing through”.
“You’ve got two choices here” Mr Morrison said, “you can push through or you can get locked out. We’re for pushing through”
Overnight, Victoria has recorded 34,808 new cases, NSW 20,030, South Australia 4,506, Queensland 9,581, Tasmania 1,218, ACT 938 and NT recorded 404.
Across the country, states are imposing new restrictions in an attempt to slow down the spread of the Omicron variant.
Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley announced today that new restrictions and mandates were necessary to combat the wave.
Among the announcements was a new pandemic order that would make a COVID-19 booster shot mandated for healthcare workers, aged care workers, disability workers, emergency service workers, correction facilities workers, hotel quarantine workers and food distribution workers. This Includes manufacturing, warehousing, transport, both freight and port workers involved in food distribution.
Despite the significant concern, the Prime Minister made clear that lock downs shouldn’t be on the cards.
“It’s going to be tough, the whole pandemic has been tough and Australians have shown the resilience and patience and the determination”
“The best possible medical advice is to push through”
A significant contributing factor to this statement is the major difference in the ratio of people getting infected with COVID-19 and hospitalisations.
“We’re dealing with a serious volume of cases but we are not seeing the same impact proportionally from previous variants in terms of the impact on hospitalisations, ICU and ventilated patients”
Mr Morrison has reiterated that vaccination and booster shots are the best way to ensure staying open and staying safe.
“If you want to end up in hospital, being unvaccinated against this virus is the most likely way to end up there.”
The press conference coincided with the beginning of vaccinations for 2.3 million children who are aged five to eleven.
