Australia will face a “challenge” with flu-rona, where people suffer both Covid and the flu, when the weather gets colder, the nation’s chief medical officer has warned.
Professor Paul Kelly on Tuesday said there was a “chance of reinfection” with Omicron and he expected winter would bring more cases of Covid.
It comes as Health Minister Greg Hunt announced the government would be enacting a private hospital agreement, first established in March 2020, to send 57,000 nurses and more than 100,000 staff from the private sector to support struggling state health systems.
Victoria has issued a statewide Code Brown, which will postpone leave for healthcare workers and defer non-essential services across multiple hospitals.
“I think winter, we will see more Covid – that’s been the case in every winter so far in all parts of the world,” Professor Kelly said.
“Whether that will be Omicron for people who have not yet got it during this wave or another variant, I can’t tell. That’s a crystal ball matter.
“What I do know though is that we’re almost certainly going to have a flu season this year as well in winter.
“And flu and coronavirus together, as has been seen in several countries in the northern hemisphere right now, is a challenge.
“So that’s a challenge we’re up to and up for in the coming months.”
Professor Kelly said Omicron had shown greater risk of being reinfected compared to previous strains.
“We know from the beginning of the pandemic that reinfection was actually quite rare in previous waves,” he said.
“If you had the original virus, it was unlikely you would get that again.
“There was protection from all of the previous waves up until Omicron in terms of reinfection.”
He said there were early indications that Omicron might protect against Delta, but what would happen with future variants was unclear.
“Does Omicron protect against future variants of the virus? We have no way of knowing that until we know what those future variants might hold,” he said.
Mr Hunt said the government had planned for the possibility people would need a fourth shot.
“We don’t know yet, but we prepared for, we secured, we invested on that front,” he said.
