ACT Health’s most recent weekly epidemiological report said cases are rising in school-aged children – a trend they will monitor throughout this term. Photo: TCCS.
The ACT has reported 1,001 new COVID-19 infections in the last reporting period to 8 pm last night as Health says cases are rising in primary school-aged children.
It comes as Year 2 and 3 at Red Hill Primary School. Years 4 to 6 at Weetangera Primary School and Amaroo School are the latest cohort of students to turn to temporary remote learning due to COVID-induced, or exacerbated staffing shortages.
Those students will be at home from Monday to Friday next week.
Year 10 students at Amaroo School will now return on Monday (16 May).
During the week ending 8 May, 6736 cases of COVID-19 were recorded in the Territory while the seven-day rolling mean remained stable at 850 to 950 cases a day.
Of these cases, 7.1 per cent (481) were reported in the 5 to 11 age group and 7.8 per cent (526) were recorded in the 12 to 17 age group.
The seven-day rolling average case rate for school-aged children (0 to 17) has increased over the last two reporting periods.
ACT Health says this may be attributed to the commencement of term two, but authorities will nonetheless monitor this trend over the term.
Over the week, the test positivity rolling mean remained stable between 22 and 23 per cent.
“An increased positivity suggests higher transmission and that there are likely more people with coronavirus in the community who have not presented for testing,” according to the Health Directorate’s epidemiological report.
“The focus in this phase of the pandemic is less on total case numbers and more on monitoring severe outcomes and the burden on the healthcare system.”
One case of the BA.5 subvariant was detected in the ACT this week. The person had recently returned from overseas.
Around 300 cases of the Omicron sub-variant BA.5 have been detected in at least 17 countries, the World Health Organisation said last week. Little is known about how the sub-variant behaves but it is understood to be more contagious than the original Omicron strain.
This week, 32 people were admitted to hospital compared with 46 in the previous week.
Three people were admitted to the ICU over the week, compared to eight in the previous week.
Of the 70 ICU admissions since 1 January 2022, a total of 24 had received three doses of vaccine, 26 had received two doses of vaccine, two had received a single dose of vaccine, 16 were unvaccinated and the vaccination status of the remaining two people are unknown.
The 1,001 (512 PCR and 489 RAT) new cases reported in the ACT in the 24 hours to 8 pm last night take the total active cases to 6,366 (3,306 PCR and 3,060 RAT).
There have been a total of 117,882 infections recorded in the ACT.
Yesterday, 1217 new infections were reported to ACT Health as it was revealed more than 500 people had reported more than one infection with COVID-19.
Today, there are 71 people in hospital with COVID, including 5 in ICU and 2 being ventilated.
As of yesterday, the double-dose vaccination rate for the ACT’s five-plus population was 97.1 per cent and 75.8 per cent of residents aged 16 and older had received a booster.
Of ACT residents aged five to 11, 66.6 per cent had received two doses of vaccine.
Interstate, NSW has reported 19 deaths overnight and 10,954 new cases of COVID-19.
Victoria has reported 22 deaths overnight and 12,160 cases of COVID-19.
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