A Sydney immunologist has sounded the alarm that Australia’s biggest city is on track for disaster, as cases of the Covid-19 Omicron variant continues to spread.
Dr Dan Suan, a researcher at Sydney’s Garvan Institute of Medical Research, warned Christmas will likely result in thousands of super-spreader events.
“Sydney is sleepwalking into a catastrophic disaster in January if we don’t do something now.”
Dr Suan says due to the emergence of Omicron, which research shows is more contagious than Delta, there’s a high likelihood hospitals will be overwhelmed in 2022.
He said the only people that are really protected from Omicron infection are people who have a normal immune system and have been triple vaccinated.
While the wait time for a Covid-19 vaccine booster shot has been reduced in Australia, the vast majority of residents in New South Wales are only double-dosed.
Suan warns this means Omicron “can infect virtually everyone”.
“Even though we’ve hit 95 double vaxxed, which protects us against Delta, virtually the entire Sydney population is at risk of catching Omicron.”
Suan says while the data is still coming in over how severe disease caused by the new variant is, at best estimate the coverage from it drops from 90 per cent to 70 per cent with two-doses of a Pfizer vaccine.
“It’s a problem of pure math”.
Dr Suan also laid out just how dangerous the New Year’s season could prove to be.
The New South Wales Health Minister warned last week that the state was on track to report 25,000 daily cases of Covid by the end of January.
Using those numbers, Suan says that could mean 750 admissions to hospital per day, a number far higher than the Delta outbreak earlier in the year.
“We’ll still have a huge number of people needing to be hospitalised, and it’ll overwhelm the system, easily.”
Dr Suan is recommending people wear masks indoors, and if possible, cancel social events in the lead up to Christmas.
He warned that if people didn’t change their behaviour quickly, the New South Wales government would likely be forced to plunge the state into lockdown again.
“I’m not for a lockdown, I’m trying to prevent one."
SHARE ME