Government Prepared For Dual Threat Of Omicron & Influenza As We Head Into Winter

With winter looming the threat of an ongoing Omicron ripple seems unavoidable.

In what the Federal government are calling its "winter response plan” it said it was preparing for the likelihood of Covid and influenza spikes impacting individuals, families, and industry.

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It comes as Australia once more grapples with a spike in Covid cases from the highly contagious Omicron sub-variant BA-2.

The Commonwealth’s Winter Preparedness Plan will see the continued rollout of booster doses, as well as providing primary vaccination courses and booster doses to new cohorts, such as children, into the latter half of 2022.

It's estimated that the latest Omicron strain is up to 40 per cent more transmissible than its predecessor, which saw Australia's infections soar, to unexpected levels.

The concern, this time around, is that a lack of exposure to influenza, due to Covid restriction these past two years, means there is the potential for a deadly flu season, particularly as pandemic rules ease.

On Friday, Deputy Chief Medical Officer Sonya Bennett the government was planning for the worst, amid predictions of dual outbreaks of Covid and influenza.

"We know that August is the peak month for influenza. Pre-COVID, we were starting to see more cases in the intervening winter period, but by and large August will be the peak," she said.

"We haven't had experience with transmission in winter with COVID yet, it may be an earlier peak, it may be at the same time, it maybe later or in fact we might only see one of the viruses predominate, which is why we have planned for both.

"We have planned for the worst, that we will have both peaking and circulating at the same time, but we don't expect to see the cases [of COVID] that we saw in January," Dr Bennett said.

Meanwhile, Covid cases and hospitalisations across Australia and New Zealand look like this:

Western Australia 

• New cases: 9,754 
• Covid-related deaths: 3
• Hospital and ICU admissions: 208 / 6 

Northern Territory 

• New cases: TBA 
• Covid-related deaths: TBA 
• Hospital and ICU admissions: TBA

Australian Capital Territory 

• New cases: 1,139   
• Covid-related deaths: 0 
• Hospital and ICU admissions: 48 / 5

Queensland 

• New cases: 10,626
• Covid-related deaths: 5
• Hospital and ICU admissions: 393 / 15

New South Wales 

• New cases: 25,235
• Covid-related deaths: 15
• Hospital and ICU admissions: 1,301 / 46

Victoria 

• New cases: 11,749
• Covid-related deaths: 7
• Hospital and ICU admissions: 280 / 18 

South Australia 

• New cases: 5,496
• Covid-related deaths: 2
• Hospital and ICU admissions: 180 / 8  

Tasmania 

• New cases: 2,472
• Covid-related deaths: 1
• Hospital and ICU admissions: 22 / 2 

New Zealand 

• New cases: 15,918
• Covid-related deaths: 14
• Hospital and ICU admissions: 817 / 24

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