Health authorities are unsure which way the COVID wave will go in the ACT, in an uncertain time where experts have predicted cases could fall while government modelling showed a peak was still to come.
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ACT Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said the government was ramping up its campaign to encourage members of the public to wear face masks and stressed COVID-safe behaviours - including physical distancing, testing when symptomatic and mask wearing - remained very important amid significant community transmission.
"We really don't know which way this is going. My best guess is that I think numbers are likely to stabilise and we will continue to see cases across our community," Ms Stephen-Smith said.
The Health Minister said government modelling had indicated cases would rise through August, but acknowledged numbers had fallen over the last fortnight.
"There's a couple of things that could be going on and we've seen some epidemiologists have modelled that partly due to the high case numbers per 100,000 people we've been seeing in the ACT over the last few weeks, that it is likely we have reached the peak and our case numbers will continue to come down as they have or at least stabilised," she said.
"On the other hand, we know there's been a pattern in the past where those notifications and case numbers have come down during school holidays and then gone back up again as children have gone back to school as people have gone back to work and there's been more social interaction in our community."
Epidemiologists on Tuesday told The Canberra Times they thought the latest COVID-19 wave in the ACT - driven by the highly infectious BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants - had peaked and would begin to fall.
The head of epidemiological modelling at Monash University's school of public health and preventive medicine, associate professor James Trauer, said the ACT's COVID wave looked to have peaked.
"It's all pointing to a decline in case rates in the coming weeks. COVID can always surprise you, but that's my current judgement," Dr Trauer said.
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Dr Trauer said case numbers in the territory had been declining consistently for a couple of weeks and he could not see why case numbers would increase in the coming weeks, given high levels of natural immunity after a period of substantial transmission.
Ms Stephen-Smith said the government had started to increase its broad public health messaging on the benefits of mask wearing, but made no indication the government would reverse its position that mandates were no longer needed.
"Wearing a mask is an effective way to reduce the spread of COVID-19; we all know that. I think there's probably not many people in the community who aren't aware of that, but our evidence that there is some people who are not hearing that message about the government encouraging people to wear masks," she said.
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Jasper Lindell
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
