Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith has revealed there was an agreement that she would handle media at the peak of the Omicron outbreak as the chief health officer's workload was stretched due to staff shortages.
Ms Stephen-Smith said people had sought to create conspiracy theories around the absence of chief health officer Kerryn Coleman at press conferences over the summer holiday period.
Over summer, at the peak of Canberra's Omicron outbreak, Dr Coleman only appeared at two press conferences, on December 23 and January 5, while chief health officers from Victoria, Queensland and NSW made, in some cases, dozens of appearances.
But the absence of Dr Coleman at press conferences was due to her heavy workload, Ms Stephen-Smith told an annual report hearing on Wednesday.
"Coming into the December period we had come out of a very significant response to the Delta wave, and no one knew that Omicron was coming," Ms Stephen-Smith said.
"A lot of people were planning to take very well-deserved leave and breaks and spend time with their families, including people who support the chief health officer.
"There was a lot of work that was going on in the background, not particularly visible to the public.
"With all of the work that was happening and ... with the lower number of staff that were available to do that work, because people were having to take that leave, people had families and they needed a break.
"There was an agreement between myself and the chief health officer, that given I can't do that work - I can't support aged care or support early childhood education care - but what I could do was the media."
Ms Stephen-Smith said during the Christmas period and early January there wasn't a high demand from the media for Dr Coleman to be present at press conferences, and she herself was able to answer questions.
The Canberra Times first pointed out Dr Coleman's absence in late December, after requests for interviews around the reasons for changes to public health advice.
However, Ms Stephen-Smith did acknowledge that, with the wisdom of hindsight, Dr Coleman could have made more appearances.
Dr Coleman recently fronted the cameras to announce the territory's eased mask rules on February 24.
