Aboriginal health groups have criticised the surprise scrapping of the NT's last remaining COVID-19 border restriction, as Chief Minister Michael Gunner flags that the end of indoor mask mandates is also imminent.
The government says the changes, which were made without public announcement late last week, are based on updated health advice and decisions on the best use of finite resources.
But Rob McPhee, chief executive of Danila Dilba Aboriginal health service, said the change came "out of the blue" without consultation with the Indigenous health sector.
"It's critical that we stay highly vaccinated in the Territory, but we're sending a very different message saying you don't need to be vaccinated to come into the Territory anymore," he told ABC Radio Darwin on Tuesday.
It comes as a man in his 80s from Central Australia became the Northern Territory's 16th death related to COVID-19.
In a statement, NT Health said the man had underlying health conditions and passed away at Alice Springs Hospital.
There are currently 123 patients in hospital, with 10 patients requiring oxygen — down from 21 yesterday — and three patients in the intensive care unit.
Mr McPhee said although COVID-19 cases and hospitalisations have started to drop in the NT, Territorians were still dying from COVID-19 — most of whom are Aboriginal — and a new variant could emerge at any moment.
"We've got to be careful that we don't lift all these restrictions and send the wrong message too early," he said.
John Paterson, chief executive of the NT branch of the Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance (AMSANT), also said the government's announcement took the sector by surprise.
"The whole messaging is totally confused," he told ABC Radio Darwin.
Mr Paterson said the virus was still "spreading like wildfire" in remote communities and said he didn't want "the unvaccinated walking around the streets of Darwin, spreading the virus to our most vulnerable population".
Chief Minister says number of unvaccinated visitors is low
Defending the move on ABC Radio Darwin this morning, Mr Gunner said the proportion of unvaccinated travellers coming to the NT was very small compared to vaccinated travellers.
"We get 2,000 to 3,000 arrivals in the Northern Territory a day, so essentially you get just over one unvaccinated person a day arriving in the Northern Territory," he said.
"So, all that workload, the red tape, the resources, were essentially being spent on our border forms to manage the vaccinated, who we're not really worried about."
Mr Gunner said COVID-19 was so prevalent now across the Territory that unvaccinated visitors would not contribute much to further spread.
He also said the health system was coping with case numbers and the severity of illness in patients.
"We've got declining case numbers, hospital loads and the ICU spike we thought would come, never came," he said.
Mr Gunner said the NT's broad vaccine mandate and booster requirement would work to ensure the community remained protected.
He said it was important for workers in high-risk settings or public-facing roles to get their booster shots because they posed a greater risk to the community than others.
"The science has shown vaccines and natural immunity both wane and so if you don't maintain the vaccine status, we will actually be an unvaccinated nation," he said.
Indoor mask mandate may soon be dropped
In a further winding back of COVID restrictions, Mr Gunner said his government was considering dropping the indoor mask mandate soon.
"I can't give you a date yet, but it'd be sooner rather than later, I would think around the mask mandates," he said.
"We are seeing a decline in case numbers and declining pressure on our hospital system, so I think indoor masks [mandates] are close [to being removed]."
He also said his government was looking at scaling back the use of the QR code check-in app so it would operate as a vaccine pass only.
In total, 716 new cases of COVID-19 were recorded in the NT today, 663 from positive rapid antigen tests (RATs).
There were 409 cases recorded in the Top End region, 114 in Central Australia, 42 in East Arnhem, 52 in the Big Rivers region, 37 in the Barkly region and 62 are under investigation.
The number of active cases in the NT is about 5,754.
