Australia reimposes COVID-19 restrictions in some states as Omicron strain spreads
Australia's two most populous states reintroduced anti-Covid-19 restrictions Thursday, with daily infections recording an all-time high amid an outbreak of the highly contagious mutant of the Corona virus and an influx of domestic Christmas travelers to testing centers.
The state of New South Wales, where a third of Australia's population of 25 million lives, said it had again imposed the need for masks in enclosed public places, while ordering places that received customers to limit the number of visitors.
The state of Victoria, which is home to almost the same number of residents of New South Wales, also reintroduced the use of masks, which it attributed to the need to relieve pressure on the health system.
The changes that came two days ago
The changes, which come two days before Christmas, falter the country's plans to reopen permanently after intermittent closures for nearly two years, with the outbreak of the new mutation in the community despite the vaccination rate with two vaccines exceeding 90 percent.
The death rate and hospital admissions remained low, but the authorities said the high infections posed a risk to health care workers.
The country recorded more than 8,200 new cases of the virus, in the largest daily increase since the beginning of the pandemic, after the previous peak of 5,600 recorded a day earlier, mostly in New South Wales and Victoria.
After reports of people waiting for hours at testing centres, New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet blamed those planning to travel between states before Christmas and said it was "tremendous pressure on the system".
Most states require travelers to have a negative test result 72 hours before departure in order to be allowed entry, despite Prime Minister Scott Morrison's request that they ease testing requirements.
Despite the increase in injuries, the rate of hospitalizations remains much lower compared to the wave of the Delta strain, with about 800 patients hospitalized out of about 44,000 active cases.
Conclusion According to the Ministry of Health, only 37 of those cases were infected with the Omicron mutant. Despite the wave of the new mutated in Australia, the total number of recorded cases, amounted to 273 thousand injuries and 2173 deaths, much less than many countries.
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