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Elective surgery may be suspended as state gears up for latest Covid tsunami

Queensland hospitals may need to suspend elective surgery again as the state faces a third Covid-19 wave, the health minister says.

Jul 07, 2022, updated Jul 07, 2022
Queensland Health Minister Yvette D'Ath. (AAP Image/Darren England)

Queensland Health Minister Yvette D'Ath. (AAP Image/Darren England)

The latest wave has seen daily infections surge 18 per cent in the state, with 39,200 cases reported on Wednesday.

Authorities are urging people to ensure they’re up to date with their booster vaccines, as Queensland hospitals treat 705 people with the virus.

Health Minister Yvette D’Ath says the two dominant subvariants are more contagious and more than 2000 health staff are off work due to the virus.

She says coming with the ongoing flu outbreak, which has put more than 100 people in hospital, some facilities may need to suspend elective surgeries before the Covid-19 peak in July-August.

“There is no doubt that this will continue to put pressure on our health system,” D’Ath told ABC radio on Thursday.

“We’re doing everything can we can to streamline our pathways to our (emergency departments), to open up beds.

“Individual hospitals and hospital and health services will make decisions around elective surgery and whether they need to suspend the lower-category surgeries to free up beds, so that they can accommodate these numbers.”

Queensland public hospitals previously paused non-urgent elective surgeries due to the pandemic at the beginning of the year.

About 1200 Queensland hospital beds are already occupied by Covid-19, flu and long-stay patients, with pressure set to grow in the next two months.

D’Ath said case numbers were likely higher than official records and it was hard to predict the trajectory of the outbreak after children returned from school holidays on Monday.

“I do think not everyone’s taking rapid antigen tests and not all of them are 100 per cent accurate,” she said.

“So, you know, we expect that there’s a lot more cases out there then we’re recording anyway.”

Queensland has recorded 1278 Covid-19 deaths this year after seven deaths during the previous two years.

The health minister urged people to ensure they had had a booster vaccine, saying only 63 per cent of those eligible had done so.

She said less than half of eligible over 65s had had a fourth dose, with that cohort four times more likely to catch the new sub-variants.

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“What people need to understand is we keep getting new variants. We don’t know what that next variant’s going to do,” D’Ath said.

“It looks like this new one is more contagious, and it’s just not worth the risk because it (a booster) reduces the risk of you getting seriously ill, reduces the risk of you going into hospital, and potentially it’s also reducing the risk of giving it to someone who is extremely vulnerable in the community.”

The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation met on Wednesday to discuss the possibility of expanding access for a fourth vaccine dose – or second booster – to the broader population following a rise in infections.

Currently, the fourth dose is only available to those over 65, people in aged or disability care and the immunocompromised.

But Australia’s immunisation experts could recommend that be expanded to anyone over the age of 50, and allow anyone over 30 to have another booster if they wish.

A decision is not expected until at least Friday, according to Health Minister Mark Butler.

However, Australian National University infectious diseases expert Professor Peter Collignon said those who were more vulnerable to the virus should still be prioritised for a fourth dose.

“By looking at everybody for this, we’re missing the people who are most at risk,” he told Sky News on Thursday,

“By doing the whole population as we’re doing, and implying almost everybody’s equal, I think we’re missing the people who are dying the most, and that’s those who are older.”

 

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