New Covid wave ‘soup’ to spoil Christmas cheer
CHRISTMAS could be under threat from a fresh wave of Covid-19 that has begun in Australia’s eastern states.
A “soup” of Omicron variants, including BA. 5, BA. 2.75, XBB and BQ. 1, is driving up case numbers across the country, all with the ability to escape immunity, according to NSW chief health officer Kerry Chant.
Dr Chant confirmed that NSW was entering its fourth Covid-19 wave.
“The wave is taking off with some trajectory; it will be quite a steep wave, and hopefully the decline will be equally as steep,” she told ABC.
“That’s why it’s important the community takes these protective measures now and I can’t stress the urgency – if you’re going to get vaccinated, do it immediately.”
The nation is in a different state than last Christmas, with more variants and lower immunity, according to Deakin University chair of epidemiology Catherine Bennett.
“The big difference between this Christmas and last is that the virus is now circulating in the community,” Professor Bennett said. “We were only starting to open up this time last year.
“The other difference is that we now have multiple variants, and we haven‘t really had that in the community. It’s usually been one dominant variant or two outbreaks with one getting under control before the other one takes off.”
The subvariants are all “different” from each other, meaning that it is likely that people who previously had Covid-19 will be reinfected if they come into contact with one or more of the new strains.
“All these new variants are evading immunity,” UNSW epidemiologist Abrar Chughatai said. “Even if you’ve been vaccinated, there’s still a chance you’ll be reinfected.”
Professor Bennett said: “Those reinfections will push up the number of active cases at any one time.
“It might also push up the number of asymptomatic infections we have. We won’t know how many infections we’ll have.
“We will just be looking at the impact in terms of people in hospital for Covid.”
The wave has “several causes” and comes “just in time for Christmas”, says University of South Australia chair of biostatistics Adrian Esterman.
“Many people had their last dose of vaccine over six months ago and by now have comparatively little protection against symptomatic disease,” Professor Esterman said.