Australia must move away from the logic of severe government restrictions and the authorities must stop restricting the lives of citizens with a lockdown over covid-19, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said today, as the number of new cases records rapid rise.
In recent days the number of new infections in Australia is breaking records, with the outbreak being fed by the most contagious variant strain Omicron of the coronavirus. However, Morrison insisted that limiting the spread of the virus was now the individual responsibility of citizens.
“We have to overcome this mentality of government enforcement and we have to treat Australians as adults,” he told reporters. At the same time, he called on the authorities to change their attitude and move away from the “culture of orders”.
“We will not return to the lockdowns. We will move forward and live with this virus with common sense and responsibility,” he stressed.
Lockdowns and strict social isolation rules have helped Australia reduce the number of covid-19 cases to relatively low levels, with the country having recorded about 260,000 infections and 2,154 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. But in recent weeks it has reopened, as most of its residents have been immunized against covid-19 despite the threat of the Omicron strain.
Authorities are now focusing on booster vaccines, with Morrison calling on states to reopen hundreds of vaccination centers that closed when demand for appointments dropped as 80% of Australians over the age of 16 were fully immunized.
Despite Omicron’s rapid spread, Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said only “a very small fraction” of these cases end up in hospital. The number of covid-19 patients being treated is on the rise, but remains lower than at the peak of the Delta-induced outbreak.
About 4,600 new cases of covid-19 were detected in the past 24 hours in Australia, surpassing the previous record of about 4,100 over the weekend.
SOURCE: AMPE
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Source From: Capital

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