“As we see higher levels of infectivity … as movement happens around the community, as there is more indoor activity as the weather gets colder, you would expect that to start to be reflected in chains of transmission,” Mr Foley said on Tuesday.
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“[There will be] a peak in April and a long tail coming down in May.”
A spokeswoman for Mr Foley said the committee had been clear that any changes to transmission reduction strategies would need to happen after the BA.2 peak.
“We’re following the advice of public health experts, as we have always done, and when we have more to say we will,” she said.
It follows a warning by Mr Foley last Saturday that the subvariant could lead to “several hundred” extra hospitalisations a day in Victoria by the end of the month.
The Australian Health Protection Principal Committee recently warned against watering down seven-day quarantine rules for household contacts “at this time”, concluding “the escalation in case numbers is likely to increase, rather than decrease, any disruptions to broader societal functioning”.
“Making changes, including changes to quarantine settings, that will result in increased transmission in the community at a time when cases are already increasing or are at their peak, may result in further disruption to the health system,” the advice says.
University of Melbourne epidemiologist Professor Tony Blakely said the government should not consider scrapping mask mandates for children and hospitality workers until after the BA.2 peak.
“Now is not the time to ease or panic and tighten restrictions,” Professor Blakely said.
The government is weighing ending mask mandates on public transport. Credit: Renee Nowytarger
“Once case numbers start to fall by around 10 or 20 per cent is when we can look to easing further mask restrictions.”
Unlike Victoria, NSW does not require hospitality workers or some primary school children to wear masks.
But on other issues, including seven-day isolation rules, the two states have so far been in lock-step.
Victoria had intended to relax remaining restrictions until a spike in cases of the Omicron variant prompted the government to reconsider its plans and reimpose some rules in January.
On Friday, NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet said he had been in contact with Mr Andrews about changing isolation rules for close household contacts, saying “it makes sense”.
“I’ll continue to work with premiers, I’ve been in contact with the Victorian Premier in relation to this,” Mr Perrottet said.
“The faster we get to a point where we can relax the close contact rules, the better,” Mr Perrottet said.
James Wood, an applied mathematician at UNSW’s School of Public Health who also runs modelling for NSW Health, said the latest Omicron wave, driven by the sub-variant BA.2, had peaked in NSW and “cases are on the way down”.
“I am very confident we are passed the peak. Within Sydney, basically, every local government area should be seeing cases come down reasonably quickly,” Dr Wood said.
Government considering removal of mask restrictions within weeks
Source: Philippines Alive
