WA's Health Minister has admitted the government does not expect to be able to contain a number of Omicron outbreaks across Perth, as the state recorded 24 local cases.
It brings the total number of active cases in the state to 90, with 24 in hotel quarantine and the rest in self-quarantine.
Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson said this was the start of Omicron in WA.
"I think it's clear that we're not going to eliminate Omicron, it's now about how we suppress and manage Omicron," she said.
"That's our intention as a government and certainly that's the advice of the Chief Health Officer.
"He was very clear that it can't be eliminated because it's so transmissible."
Ms Sanderson said it was not yet clear how many of Sunday's cases had been infectious in the community.
The Minister used Sunday's case numbers to plead with the public to get tested if they had symptoms, regardless of whether they have been to an exposure site.
She said 4,743 tests were conducted on Saturday.
"It's a bit of a wake-up call for the broader community as well that we do have COVID in our community now and we really need to see those testing numbers higher," Ms Sanderson said.
"These testing numbers are not high enough.
"The better the testing numbers, the more confidence we have that positive cases are accounted for and they are in quarantine."
COVID breach at major Perth hospital
It comes after five families and a number of staff have been forced into self-quarantine after a woman and her child — who are both COVID positive — attended Fiona Stanley Hospital on Saturday.
Ms Sanderson explained the pair presented to a triage unit outside the hospital after the mother became concerned about her child's health.
They were directed to the emergency department by health staff.
When they arrived, the mother told a staff member in the triage unit they were both positive but they were directed into the ED, against procedure.
"[The mother] questioned it, but was directed into the waiting room," Ms Sanderson said.
As soon as they presented to triage staff inside the waiting room, the mistake was recognised and the pair were isolated.
Full review to be undertaken into breach
Ms Sanderson said all staff were in full PPE and everyone involved was wearing masks, but will now have to quarantine until they return a negative test result.
"This is being taken extremely seriously and a full review will be undertaken," she said.
"Procedures are in place to protect staff and patients and they need to be followed."
Ms Sanderson said she would not reveal too many details about the child involved, but said it was unclear whether their illness was related to COVID.
She also said work was underway to prevent a similar incident happening again, including for health staff to warn hospitals when they were aware of a positive case.
"Further training will be undertaken to ensure that all staff, whether it's hospital staff or agency staff, are fully aware of their obligations prior to going into that triage booth," Ms Sanderson said.
Triaging COVID patients should be nurses' job: ANF
The state secretary of the nurses union, Mark Olson, said the person who made the mistake at Fiona Stanley Hospital was not a nurse, but an assistant in nursing who was relieving the person meant to be in the job.
"They fill a very important part of the health system, but they need to review where we do have assistants in nursing in terms of triaging of COVID patients," he said.
"It may or may not be appropriate depending on the circumstances, but it's been a complaint that's been coming across my desk all too frequently."
He said the union's preference would be for only nurses to be responsible for triaging COVID-positive patients.
Mr Olson said it was important the government learned from the issue to improve its procedures.
"These are early days. I don't think you can afford to have these mistakes happening at any time, but if you're going to have them, have them in the early days," he said.
No excuses for blunder says Opposition
Opposition health spokeswoman Libby Mettam said there were no excuses for what happened at Fiona Stanley Hospital.
"The fact that basic triage procedures were not followed when it is well understood there is COVID in the community," she said.
"We've been aware of COVID for the last two years, and for the McGowan government to fail such basic protocols at Fiona Stanley Hospital is quite extraordinary.
"They can't even manage the basic COVID protocols in our major tertiary hospital."
Clusters continue to grow
Ms Sanderson provided more detail about a number of clusters across Perth, with the biggest cluster in the southern suburb of Cockburn.
- Cockburn: 51 total cases, one new
- Willagee: 14 total cases, five new
- Safety Bay: Nine total cases, three new
- Coolbellup: 13 total cases, two new
- Haynes: Four total cases, two new
- Manning: Three total cases
The Health Minister said contact tracers had now found links for some cases which were previously unlinked to existing clusters, with all tracing their roots back to the Cockburn cluster.
"They put all of that information together to come up with essentially their hypothesis as to where they think they're linked," she said.
"The genomic sequencing can be very accurate, and sometimes it's a little bit looser, so that's why they need both of those formats of information to be able to establish it."
Skyworks 'superspreader' fears
Mr Olson also encouraged the government to consider cancelling the Australia Day Skyworks as well as to introduce tougher restrictions, including capacity limits.
"The reason I say that is the Premier made a very brave call on Thursday night to delay the border opening," he said.
"The ANF does not want to see any benefits or gains from delaying the opening of the border completely and utterly wasted by suddenly we have a superspreader event such as [Skyworks].
"I'm not quite sure how many cases we have to have before they stop a quarter of a million people gathering on the foreshores of Perth on Wednesday night."
But the Health Minister defended the decision to allow the fireworks display to go ahead.
"It's a family event and I think it's deemed that it should go ahead with mask-wearing," she said.
"We want people just to do the right thing, social distance, keep washing your hands and keep your masks on."
Ms Sanderson also said the government was standing firm on its decision to delay the border reopening, with a new date to be considered in about four weeks.
Speaking ahead of Sunday's announcement, Perth Lord Mayor Basil Zempilas said Skyworks would be going ahead as planned.
"Given the advice from the Health Department is that it is safe to proceed on Wednesday night, we are proceeding all guns blazing," he said.
