Australia Hits By Omicron Subvariant Wave: Health Authorities Want Citizens To Work From Home, Back To Wearing Masks At Home

Illustration of a queue for COVID-19 vaccination in Australia. (Wikimedia Commons/Kgbo)

JAKARTA - The number of Australians hospitalized for COVID-19 hit record levels on Wednesday, with authorities urging businesses to allow their staff to work from home, recommending the use of indoor masks, and calls for booster doses of the vaccine.

Australia is in the grip of a third wave of Omicron driven by new highly contagious subvariants, BA.4 and BA.5, with more than 300.000 cases recorded over the past seven days.

Kangaroo State authorities announced Wednesday that the number of new cases of COVID-19 infection reached 53.850, the highest daily infection rate in two months. However, the actual number mentioned could be twice that figure.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has resisted pressure to reimpose strict restrictions to stop the spread of the virus, including making masks mandatory indoors, though he has encouraged people to wear them.

"The truth is, if you have a mandate, you have to enforce it," Albanese told reporters.

"Despite the mandate on public transport, not everyone wears a mask," he continued.

Prime Minister Albanese further said employers and employees should decide together about working from home arrangements, as unions are asking employers to do more for their staff.

Employers must go beyond government pandemic leave payments, provide full paid leave for workers who need to isolate, and offer free rapid antigen testing, said Australian Trade Union Council President Michele O'Neil.

"No worker has to decide between putting food on the table or isolating with COVID," O'Neil said.

Last week, Australia returned support payments to freelancers who had to be quarantined.

Meanwhile, Australia's Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly predicted the number of people ending up in hospital would soon reach a record high, urging businesses to let more staff work from home.

Australia could see "millions" of new cases over the coming weeks, authorities have warned. Currently, around 5.350 Australians are hospitalized with COVID-19, not far from the record 5.390 recorded in January during the BA.1 outbreak, official data show.

Meanwhile, numbers in the states of Queensland, Tasmania, and Western Australia have even reached their highest levels since the pandemic began.

Amid these conditions, many frontline health workers are either sick or in isolation, which puts a strain on the health system. Australian doctors say masks should be mandatory in indoor places.

"We don't have optional seat belts, we don't have optional speed limits. There are a lot of restrictions on our freedom that we accept because it's the right thing to do," Australian Medical Association President Omar Khorshid told radio station 2GB.

Authorities have also warned of a delay in people taking their booster dose injections.

So far, 95 per cent of people over 16 have had two doses, helping to keep Australia's total COVID-19 cases under 9 million and deaths at 10.884, far lower than many countries. But only about 71 percent received three or more doses.