The way Canberrans will encounter COVID-19 has now shifted significantly, with high levels of community transmission and health authorities hopeful people will continue to do the right thing and take their own degree of precaution.
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Testing positive for COVID-19 will now involve a ring around of all the people you've spent time with in the lead-up to the diagnosis. And, following a national cabinet decision on Wednesday, that diagnosis could be as simple as a home rapid antigen test.
The good news is most people won't get very sick. The ACT's two-dose vaccination rate is high, and a booster program is about to kick into gear. About 16 per cent of the eligible ACT population, those aged 12 and above, have had their third vaccination dose so far.
While the percentage of people who will fall seriously ill will be small, a small percentage of a very big number is still a lot of people.
Chief health officer Dr Kerryn Coleman has prepared Canberrans for life with more than a thousand cases of COVID-19 in the ACT every day. That will hit close to home very soon, if it has not already.
So Canberra has arrived at a nerve-wracking juncture. Living with COVID-19 is about to feel very real.
Case numbers are about to become largely hypothetical. Home COVID diagnosis on rapid tests will contribute to the under reporting of cases in the community. The system of PCR testing already lets plenty of cases slip through the cracks.
There is a psychological weight to the daily case numbers. Crossing the threshold of 100 cases a day, and then soon after 500 cases, is significant. That significance will be felt again when Canberra crosses 1000.
The higher the case numbers have risen, the more cautious some have been.
But as we lose sight of those numbers - which, for the public, have been a useful, if rough, barometer of what's going on - we ought not to lose sight of the impacts on the rest of the community: the health system, hospitals, schools and the workforce at large.
Transparency remains key. If people are asked to do the right thing, they need to be well informed of what they're doing it for, even if this cannot be distilled into a single daily figure.
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To the cynic, the changes look convenient. Stop testing and the imposing graph of rising case numbers is brought down to size. Political problem solved; health problem disguised.
But in fact the case numbers have never been the whole story. It is people who face very serious illness, and have died, and whose lives are interrupted, perhaps forever, with long COVID.
Mild disease and easy recovery is excellent when it happens - may that, and vaccines, be widespread - but it's still not a guarantee of safety for all.
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