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Aussies ‘close to Omicron peak’

Health Minister Greg Hunt says Australia has reached a 95 per cent first-dose vaccination rate against Covid-19, while there is hope that the latest Omicron outbreak has peaked.

Hunt said the milestone for first vaccine doses for Australians aged 16 and older surpassed ‘‘almost all possible predictions that were made at the outset of the pandemic . . . but we want to go further’’.

Some 92.5 per cent of Australians aged 16 and over have had two vaccine doses, while 52.6 per cent have received their boosters. More than 250,000 children aged between 5 and 11 have received their first dose since becoming eligible on Monday.

New South Wales recorded 48,768 new Covid-19 cases and 20 deaths yesterday, while Victoria registered 25,526 infections and 23 deaths.

Chief Medical Officer Professor Paul Kelly said there were ‘‘signs for hope’’ that the outbreaks in both states, as well as the ACT, had peaked.

‘‘The actual forecasting based on actual numbers of cases, particularly in NSW but also in Victoria and ACT, leads me to believe that we are close to the peak of this wave in terms of cases,’’ he said, noting that infections were likely to be under-reported.

Kelly said there would be a rise in hospitalisations and deaths in the coming weeks, but the overall rate of severe disease was ‘‘extremely low’’.

Meanwhile, infectious-disease experts are warning that people may become reinfected with

Covid-19 due to different variants circulating in the community.

Epidemiology chair at Deakin University, Professor Catherine Bennett, said that while the majority of cases in the country were linked to the Omicron variant, people were still being infected with the Delta strain.

‘‘We know Omicron has higher rates of reinfection, and that was in people who have had Delta.’’

NSW Health Deputy

Secretary Susan Pearce said hospital systems were still under immense strain. Premier

Dominic Perrottet said the state had ‘‘a difficult few weeks ahead’’.

NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant warned that about half the people in NSW could become infected during the Omicron wave, though some would be asymptomatic.

Chant said she was ‘‘really horrified’’ by suggestions that people could be hosting parties in an attempt to deliberately get infected.

‘‘Although we’ve talked about Omicron being a milder disease, it can still cause serious consequences.’’

Brazilian children began receiving Covid-19 vaccines yesterday, the start of an effort that was delayed for several weeks by the federal government’s reluctance to endorse the immunisation of children.

The country’s health regulator issued approval on December 16 for the Pfizer shot for kids aged 5 to 11. This incensed President Jair Bolsonaro, who has complained about vaccinating children, saying he won’t let his 11-yearold daughter get shots, and warning of possible side-effects.

A study released by US health authorities in late December determined that serious sideeffects of the Pfizer vaccine in 5to 11-year-olds are rare.

But rather than follow the regulators’ guidance, Bolsonaro’s Health Ministry published an online questionnaire asking if children should need a doctor’s prescription to get the shot.

Some of the president’s supporters campaigned on social media for people to vote against vaccines for children.

Despite this, a majority of the survey’s almost 100,000 respondents opposed the need for prescriptions, and the Health Ministry announced last week that it would allow children to be vaccinated.

Brazil has begun experiencing a surge in Covid-19 cases, and the highly transmissible Omicron variant has become the dominant strain.

More than two-thirds of Poland’s Covid-19 medical advisory body have resigned, saying the government is not heeding their advice in its response to the pandemic.

Thirteen of the board’s 17 members said ‘‘very limited action’’ was taken during a recent surge and against the threat from the fast-spreading Omicron variant, ‘‘despite an expected huge number of deaths’’. They also complained of a ‘‘growing tolerance’’ in the government for state officials playing down the threat of the pandemic or the need for vaccination.

Poland has recorded more than 100,000 virus-related deaths, and less than 60 per cent of the population of 38 million is vaccinated.

WORLD

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2022-01-16T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-01-16T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://fairfaxmedia.pressreader.com/article/281805697293738

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