As Australia braces for another swell in the pandemic, health officials in the Northern Territory are calling for the return of masks to protect people living in remote communities and more resources to roll out vaccines.
Nearly all restrictions have been relaxed as the nation tries to restore a semblance of normalcy, but two new COVID-19 strains, BA.4 and BA.5 — tipped to lead Australia into its third Omicron wave in the coming weeks – could upend progress.
Health organisations are warning far more needs to be done to prevent a new COVID surge from threatening the country's most vulnerable people, living in the most remote pockets of Australia.
Especially amid a steep rise in influenza cases across the Northern Territory, which has already exacerbated ongoing staff and bed shortages at hospitals, according to Katherine West Health Board chief executive Sinon Cooney.
"We're concerned about the waning immunity of the first two doses of the vaccine and the slower uptake of the third dose," Mr Cooney said.
"COVID is still very real, and it's still here, and the new variants are of concern."
BA.4 and BA.5 are more infectious than previous COVID variants and sub-variants, and appear to be masters at evading immunity.
NT Chief Health Officer Dr Charles Pain says the number of cases of COVID have been rising for the past 10 days, and are expected to continue to rise until "perhaps the end of the month".
Only about 70 per cent of people over five years of age, living in remote communities in the Katherine region have received their third vaccine.
Mr Cooney said a straining health care system, plagued by staff shortages, was already posing difficulties in rolling out fourth doses, which would be critical as cases rise.
"We still have a job ahead of us. And it's really important for us that we have the resources available to do that. And we do call on government to provide resources to services like ours, to make sure that we can vaccinate people when they want to be vaccinated," he said.
He said a "level of fatigue and tiredness" in the COVID space, and a bombardment of messaging that we're now living with COVID are adding to the challenges.
"We'd love to see a [mask] mandate, but we understand that may not be an outcome that the government's looking for," Mr Cooney said.
"So we're really encouraging people to still wear masks when they're in indoor places where they can't socially distance.
"Because if the government isn't going to mandate it, we can still make a difference by implementing those actions ourselves.
Northern Land Council chairman, Samuel Bush-Blanasi, said he'd also like to see stronger regulations around mask wearing and entry into remote Indigenous communities.
He also said he'd like Aboriginal people reinstated to the "vulnerable people" list under the Chief Health Officer directions, to ensure organisations have clarity around wether they need to mandate vaccines in the workplace.
"The flu is already in the community and COVID is starting to creep in now."
"If it does hit the community it's going to be a massive COVID spread."
Yesterday, Chief Minister Natasha Fyles said there would be no changes to the current COVID regulations at this time, including changing the rules around mask wearing.
This has drawn concern from Mr Bush-Blanasi.
"I support the government saying that, but on the other hand I'm not too happy about it," he said.
In the remote community of Binjari, near Katherine, residents are still grieving a loss, after a 78-year-old elder became the first person to die of COVID-19 in the NT.
The community endured one of the NT's strictest lockdowns, which saw unprecedented measures taken to enforce bans on people leaving their homes to stop COVID spreading.
"I don't want to go back to when we had a hard lockdown at all, it was scary and hard," Binjari Community Aboriginal Corporation chief executive Deb Aloisi said.
Forced to isolate in chronically overcrowded homes, COVID spread through the community like wildfire, and with the recent closure of the NT's isolation centre, Howard Springs, Ms Aloisi is concerned a third wave could see the same outcomes.
"It would just run riot," Ms Aloisi said.
"I'd like the government to try and get something in place now before it's too late."
"Masks can be a very useful tool, but this is part of shifting from that pandemic where we provide CHO direction, to an endemic where we are learning to live with the consequences of COVID-19," Chief Minister Natasha Fyles told media on Thursday.
Dr Pain shared the sentiment, but said that while it would not be an over reaction to reintroduce a mask mandate, amid increasing pressure nationally and discussions within other states, for now in the NT, it would need to be a personal choice.
"We're not reacting to a more serious disease, we're just reacting to something that's more infectious.
"As the chief minister said, we're not going to mandate, we're beyond that now, people don't want us to tell them what to do but they will hopefully take our advice."
