Canberrans have been warned that daily COVID-19 case numbers in the territory are likely to rise, possibly as much as tripling in the coming weeks.
The ACT recorded 1,143 new cases of the virus in the 24 hours to 8pm last night, and authorities say modelling suggests these numbers will grow.
ACT Chief Health Officer Kerryn Coleman said at a press conference on Monday that daily case numbers were expected to peak in late July or early August.
"Modelling does show that daily COVID-19 case numbers are expected to continue to increase across Australia over the coming weeks, and these numbers are not expected to peak until later this month or early next month," she said.
"During this time we could be seeing more than 2,000 or even 3,000 cases a day just here in the ACT, and this is happening at a time that we are also seeing those other viruses in the community circulating."
Due to a current high demand for healthcare and high number of unwell staff, Canberra Health Services are calling for the community to consider their need to attend hospitals with non-life threatening ailments.
Canberra Health Services chief Dave Peffer said their staffing was causing a serious strain on their ability to provide the community medical assistance.
"In terms of the challenges that we've been facing, in the last three months we had 18,000 days of COVID leave in our health services that we had to carry," he said.
"That places a pretty big strain on those who are left to carry the service and keep those services running."
'Now is the time to refocus those efforts'
Dr Coleman said with the likely rise in case numbers in the coming weeks, now was the time for Canberrans to get back to their COVID-safe behaviours.
She said while many in the community have become more relaxed about things like mask wearing, a resurgence of these behaviours was highly recommended.
"This current wave of COVID 19 is being driven by the rise of the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron subvariants, which are quickly overtaking our previous sub variants," she said.
"As a community we have worked really hard to get back to a relatively normal way of doing things where we can safely enjoy all the things that we love, and now is the time to refocus these efforts."
Despite this, Dr Coleman said the ACT Government were not planning to reintroduce mandated mask wearing.
"We are not currently looking at mandates, which as I've said before we only want to use when we absolutely have to, but I am strongly urging everybody to do what you can to help minimise transmission and the impacts of COVID-19," she said.
"We need to use our COVID-smart behaviours again to continue to continue to help protect our community as this new wave approaches and makes its way through Canberra and Australia.
"My feeling is that more Canberrans will step up, realise that we're heading in to serious part of this COVID experience, and take on the need to wear masks moving forward."
High demand for fourth vaccine dose
President of the ACT branch of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, Simon Blacker, said he had seen a high take-up of second boosters since the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) last week recommended that Australians aged 30 and up receive a fourth dose of a COVID-19 vaccination.
He said despite growing demand for the vaccines, Canberrans should not worry about low supply in the capital.
"As word of the announcement was out, certainly we had phone calls and people coming into the pharmacy, and I think every pharmacy across Canberra probably had a surge in interest that afternoon, and we've seen that continue over the last few days.
"This greater cohort being eligible [will] see probably longer wait times now coming for appointments, so I'd ask that the community be patient, you will be able to get your vaccination at some stage, but it just may take a week or two or three longer than you might have thought."
Along with recommending second boosters to more Canberrans, the ACT government last week announced it would reduce the reinfection period for people who have had COVID-19 from 12 weeks to 28 days.
From today, a person who has had COVID-19 should again get tested and isolate if they have symptoms more than 28 days after being cleared from a COVID-19 infection.
Dr Coleman said the reduction to the reinfection period reflects evidence that prior infection with COVID-19 provides limited protection against the Omicron BA.4/BA.5 subvariants.
The change is in line with national recommendations from the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee.
Dr Coleman said despite changes to the reinfection period, the messaging around testing and vaccination had not changed.
She encouraging anyone with any symptoms of the virus to get tested, and everyone in the community to remain up to date on their vaccinations and boosters for both COVID-19 and other respiratory illnesses.
