Toddler with rare genetic condition among record 18 Covid deaths in NSW
A three-year-old with a rare genetic condition has become the youngest person to die in New South Wales after contracting Covid-19, as the state government considers fines for people who do not register positive rapid antigen tests through a new app to be released this week.
On Monday NSW recorded 18 deaths from the virus, the second day in a row on which it has broken the previous record for the deadliest day of the pandemic.
Of those, five were unvaccinated, including a man in his 30s and a threeyear-old with a rare genetic condition who was not yet eligible for the jab. The child was born with a rare condition known as Niemann-Pick, a terminal illness which, the ABC reports, had left him with a short expected lifespan.
While deaths and hospitalisations continue to rise amid the Omicron surge, the official case numbers in NSW fell for the second day in a row to 20,293.
But health officials concede that number is a significant under-representation. As the NSW government has urged people to avoid queues for PCR tests and opt instead for rapid antigen tests, the positivity rate from the former has continued to increase, up to 24% on Monday.
That is likely to change from this week, when the government follows Victoria’s lead in requiring people to record positive rapid antigen tests with the government. On Monday NSW premier Dominic Perrottet confirmed the government was considering introducing fines for people who do not register the positive tests.
“By later this week I’m advised by NSW Health and Service NSW that we will have a system in place which allows people to register their positive rapid antigen tests,” he said on Monday.
“We’ve made the decision as a government that we’ll mandate that requirement [and] we will have something to say about that later this week.”
With only three weeks until schools in NSW resume after Christmas holidays, reports on Monday suggested the government would use rapid antigen testing on students in cases where someone in the cohort tests positive for Covid-19. If a student returned a negative test after an exposure, they would be allowed to return to class immediately.
But on Monday Perrottet insisted no decisions had been made about the plan, saying the issue would be discussed at a national cabinet meeting this week.
“There’s been no government decisions … the Department of Education obviously is working through those plans and we’re in the process of finalising those plans [but] nothing becomes government policy until the government makes a decision,” he said.
The government introduced new rules on Sunday allowing close contacts of cases to exit isolation if their job is critical for food supply or emergency services, but on Monday Perrottet said the government was “completely focused” on maintaining food supply and essential services.
As the number of people hospitalised with Covid-19 in NSW passed 2,000 on Monday, department deputy secretary Susan Pearce confirmed that patients including some in ICU wards had begun being transferred to private hospitals across Sydney in a bid to ease pressure on the health system.
The measure was also used during the Delta wave of infections, and Pearce stressed it “should not be seen as a failure of the public hospital system”.
“We’ve been open about the fact we intended to do this and it is not a large number but it is enough to take the pressure off,” she said.
“We’re talking about tens of patients not hundreds at this stage. At Nepean [hospital] over the weekend it was 12 to 15, not a large number … We have overall still capacity across our hospital system but it is a relief valve that exists and it is a way we can manage through these next weeks.”