With coronavirus cases on the rise, authorities in Australia, which had some of the strictest Covid rules in place in the world during the early stages of the pandemic, have so far refrained from rolling out new measures. limited return.
Australia recorded 5,357 hospitalizations on Thursday, according to Federal Ministry of Health, one of the highest numbers since the pandemic began. However, the daily average of new cases is still far below the figure seen during the largest Covid wave in Australia in January, when hospital admissions peaked.
Amid the new surge, health authorities and politicians are advising people to wear masks indoors and are urging a return to working from home. Some government ministers have continued to wear masks at press conferences. But the government has not imposed new restrictions.
When Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was asked why tougher measures were not being put in place, he said that people were following a number of existing rules – including the requirement to wear a mask when traveling in public. has been in place since the beginning of the pandemic.
“Only about half of the people are actually doing it,” Mr. Albanese told The Project news program on Wednesday. “Now, do you get on trains and buses and arrest people or fine people who don’t?”
He also cited that the new restrictions could affect the mental health of Australians, especially young people.
“We’re seeing a growing, really problematic, incidents of serious health consequences for young people,” he said, without elaborating.
In Victoria, where residents have suffered Total 262 days locked in 2020 and 2021, the state health minister rejected a recommendation from another health official that mask-wearing duties be expanded to include students, teachers, and retail and hospitality workers. . Secretary of Health, Mary-Anne Thomas, told local reporters that duty is not the most effective way to promote mask use.
The education department and school agencies in the state wrote to parents this week to say that children should wear masks in class, but the education minister emphasize that it is not a requirement.
Earlier during the pandemic, Australia’s strict border policies cost tens of thousands of dollars citizens stuck abroadand people need an exemption to leave the country. At times, people are prevented from traveling between states and are subject to strict lockdown measures, such as only being allowed to leave the house to buy groceries, exercising outdoors for an hour a day. or do authorized work.
Stephen Duckett, former chief medical officer at the Grattan Institute, says that the current reluctance to impose restrictions is a result of the political shift around pandemic restrictions.
This year, Australia has made a dramatic shift in response and policy transition living with coronavirus. The former prime minister, Scott Morrison, and his Conservative government have promised that with most of the population vaccinated, it will roll back restrictions and let people make their own decisions about their health. Follow Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford.
In May, Mr Albanese took office and his Labor party did not want to be seen as continuing the previous government’s promise, Dr Duckett said, by introducing even mild restrictions on some Australians with the return of closures.
