The pandemic is still happening, but it is no longer front-page news. It has been pushed off by devastating floods, the war in Ukraine, increasingly dire warnings about a global climate breakdown, one celebrity hitting another celebrity, and the pending federal election.
And yet, all around us, people are testing positive to Covid-19. The graph of Australia’s case numbers shows a sharp spike over early January, when the first Omicron wave saw more than 100,000 new cases reported each day, and it is starting to rise again.
In the past week alone, 185 people with Covid died in Australia. More than 80,000 people returned or registered a positive test, but the real number of positive cases is much higher. Rapid antigen tests miss at least 30% of cases, and PCR tests can also return a false negative for a person with a low viral load.
Health and aged care workers, who have been in crisis mode since the pandemic was declared 759 days ago, are exhausted. Teachers are exhausted. Even those who have been sheltered from the worst effects of the pandemic are exhausted, or are loudly arguing that there is nothing to complain about. That is a different source of exhaustion – the fear that acknowledging the pandemic is not yet over could trigger the return of restrictions.
“I have joked that we need a whole year off,” says Prof Karen Price, the president of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. “A year just to have fun and joy. On top of all the terrible things happening overseas, it’s like there’s no joy anywhere. It’s awful.”
General practitioners have been on the frontline of the pandemic response and are now on the frontline of the cleanup. There are two years’ worth of missed check-ups, delayed tests and mental health concerns.
Getting on top of all those missed appointments, and preparing for the winter Covid vaccine booster rollout and what experts have warned could be the worst flu season in three years, is taking its toll.
“The mental health burden is significant,” Price says. “The whole community has experienced some form of dislocation and grief and the last two years weighs heavily on many people.”
Concerns for young people
Price is particularly concerned about the mental health of young adults whose university experience has been interrupted and social networks fragmented by two years of online classes. In Melbourne, where Price is based, those social networks have been slow to recover.
“People are still just sitting on devices – it’s like they’ve developed an alternative world to mingle in, but it’s not a very happy world,” she says.
There is a disconnect between the public health messaging, where the pandemic remains front of mind, and the broader public consciousness, which has shoved the pandemic to one side.
“The world has habituated to a pretty terrible situation where ordinarily something like that was on the front page two years ago. Now it is barely mentioned,” Price says.
Schools, already a significant source of coronavirus transmission, have reported an increase in cases at the start of autumn.
In South Australia this week there were 508 teachers and 351 support staff isolating because of Covid, affecting 346 schools, and 4.2% of students were absent due to Covid-related reasons.
In Western Australia, 1,038 schools have reported positive cases since the start of term one – and the state still requires classroom contacts and their families to isolate, although children can attend school while a close contact.
The Victorian education department recorded 3,669 positive cases in students and 375 in teachers in government schools on Monday and Tuesday alone. The absence rate for students in Victorian government schools in term one has averaged 11%.
The absence rate for teachers has also been high and there are not enough casual teachers to fill demand, the Victorian branch president of the Australian Education Union, Meredith Peace, says.
“I met with a large group of principals yesterday and they’re very much exhausted by it all,” she says. “They’re continuing to do what they can to make sure their schools are alright, filling gaps where they can. But it is a real struggle.”
The increase in cases at the end of term one has teachers concerned that cases will continue to rise in terms two and three.
“We are concerned given what we’ve seen towards the end of this term with increased numbers of absences,” Pearce says. “If it continues the way it has been we are seriously concerned about the sustainability of that for our members.”
Despite the rise in case numbers, life has, in many areas, started to return to normal.
Workplace attendance in Australia has returned to the level seen in December 2021, just before Omicron hit, according to Google mobility data. Public transport use has also climbed to levels not seen since before the Delta wave hit in June 2021. Both remain below the baseline levels from January 2020, but it is a steady recovery after successive lockdowns.
Hospitals under strain as flu season looms
The experience of people working in hospitals at the moment is “horrific”, says Brett Holmes, the general secretary of the New South Wales Nurses and Midwives’ Association. The seven-day rolling average for hospital admissions in NSW is 150, a slight increase on last week, but hospitalisation numbers remain below those seen in the peak of the Omicron wave in January.
The outcomes for people in hospital have also been improved due to access to better drug therapies. But the strain on the system remains.
“They are all people that were never in the health system before, so it’s over and above the normal demand,” Holmes says. “And we’ve had spikes in the number of health staff who have been furloughed, because they are infected, or more likely because they are caring for their kid because it has really gone through the schools.”
Holmes says the exhaustion level in hospitals is “enormous”. Five hundred more nurses and midwives left the profession last year than would in an ordinary year.
He understands why those who don’t work in the medical system, or are fortunate to not be in a high-risk category, want to think about something – anything – else. But he says he’s “very worried” about going into winter with a health system already under strain.
“Everyone needs to get on with their life, and at some point we will all have been exposed and it will be like the flu,” Holmes says.
“But the flu kills people, thousands of people, and we’ve got used to that. Where we’re heading to is a situation where you will have flu plus Covid, and it will kill people who are vulnerable.”
• This article was amended on 10 April 2022 to correct the number of people who have died with Covid in Australia in the past week.
