July was Victoria’s deadliest month for the reason that pandemic started. The state recorded 737 deaths for the month as of Sunday, July 31, in comparison with 505 in June.
Epidemiologist Professor James Trauer stated, reasonably than mandating masks in younger faculty kids, the very first thing he would do if there was a necessity to cut back COVID-19 unfold was to get individuals who can work at home to take action.
Epidemiologist Professor James Trauer.Credit score:Scott McNaughton
“I feel that’s going to be significantly more practical than asking eight-year-olds to placed on face masks.”
The top of the epidemiological modelling unit at Monash College stated he was not sure how useful mandating working from dwelling can be at this stage of the present Omicron wave, however it could possibly be the primary stage of a plan for the following difficult variant.
“However I feel we solely want to do this if we’re actually stretching our well being providers … it needs to be a little bit of an emergency measure once we attain the kind of the degrees of stress that we’re reaching for the time being.”
The variety of Australians in hospital with COVID-19 is near the best it’s been for the reason that starting of the pandemic and for a lot of months hospital workers have been reporting that they’re being dangerously stretched by workers and mattress shortages.
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McVernon, who has been working extra from dwelling not too long ago, stated she believed it was lucky that the final main Omicron wave, in January, occurred over the vacation interval, as a result of despite the fact that folks had been socialising, they had been doing it with the identical group of individuals, usually over shorter time durations.
“What workplaces do is convey collectively folks from a lot of totally different households, from a lot of totally different geographies [and] they usually journey collectively in crowded transport.”
For these companies the place individuals are unable to work at home, McVernon steered that they do what they did earlier within the pandemic, and alter shift preparations in order that essential folks weren’t working on the similar time.
Early this month, the Australian Well being Safety Principal Committee, of which all of the nation’s chief well being officers are members, known as on employers to “take into account the feasibility of some workers working from dwelling”.
“We all know that for many individuals in lots of companies, you’ll be able to work at home and proceed to be productive,” stated Australia’s Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly final week.
Professor Alex Martiniuk, an epidemiologist with the College of Sydney, stated past getting vaccinated, which was primary, it was troublesome to rank the advantages and harms of various public well being interventions.
“So the final message to the general public is hold doing as many as you’ll be able to feasibly do with out it harming you an excessive amount of, so [whether that be] lowering contacts, working from dwelling [or] sporting a masks on the bus or on the grocery retailer.”
Victorian Employment Minister Jaala Pulford stated on Friday that Victorian employers had been getting the stability proper when it got here to working from dwelling, saying “leaders in our work neighborhood really feel acutely their accountability to guarantee that their workers are wholesome and secure at work”.
With Rachel Eddie and Ashleigh McMillan
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