Coronavirus Australia: WA ‘ready to blow up’ with virus cases

An Australian doctor has warned Western Australia is ready to blow up with COVID-19 cases, with health workers concerned overseas and interstate travellers could drive up the numbers.Western Australia only has six active cases in the state, but president of the Australian Medical Association WA, Dr Andrew Miller, told the ABC that many health professionals feel like they are “sitting on a time bomb”.
“I think I can best summarise the mood of doctors in Western Australia at the moment as we are sitting on a time bomb,” Dr Miller told the outlet.
“This state is ready to blow up with COVID.”
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Victoria‘s second wave has shown just how much of an impact this virus can have on the healthcare sector if it gets out of control.
Of today‘s 466 new COVID-19 cases, 140 were healthcare workers.
There are 7808 active virus cases across Victoria, with 998 of those infections seen in healthcare workers.
Aged care is of particular concern, with the hard-hit sector seeing a continual rise in cases and fatalities.
Half of the 12 virus deaths reported in Victoria today were related to aged care facilities.
Victorian Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton has said the state’s virus cases numbers over the last few days aren’t “good enough”.
“We are 400- 500 cases each day, more or less the average over the last week,” he said during Saturday’s press conference.
“That is not good enough but it’s a positive that we have averted an exponential increase through the last couple of weeks.”
Prof Sutton said stage three restrictions have stopped around 20,000 infections “but it hasn’t been enough”.
“We can’t have 500 cases every single day and the associated morbidity, hospitalisation, intensive care requirements and debts that are associated with that number every day,” he said.
“Stage four restrictions will make a difference but we won’t see them for another week or more. We can drive numbers down and we will drive numbers down.”
Prof Sutton said the outbreaks in aged care homes was a major issue facing the state, with more than 1600 active cases in those settings.