ACT records 75th COVID-19 death, 837 new cases in Territory

A woman in her 80s has become the Territory’s 75th pandemic casualty and ACT Health has reported an additional 837 new COVID-19 infections overnight.

As the pandemic continues to exacerbate staff shortages across the Territory’s public schools, students at six ACT public schools will start the week learning from home.

Students in K-2 at Mount Rogers Primary School and Years 1 and 2 at Isabella Plains Early Childhood School are the latest cohorts to be sent home to learn remotely due to staff shortages.

Both cohorts will spend the rest of this week at home (until Friday, 24 June) before returning to campus next week.

They have joined their peers in Years 5 and 6 at Giralang Primary School who will be back at school on Wednesday (22 June), Preschool at Ngunnawal Primary School, and Years 5 and 6 at Turner Primary School who all return to campus on Thursday (23 June).

Years 3 to 5 at Kingsford Smith Primary School will also be at home for the rest of this week, including a scheduled school planning day and remote learning.

It’s not just schools being affected by COVID-19 either, as it continues to spread in residential aged care facilities and across disability support providers.

For the week ending Sunday, 12 June, the latest data indicates a total of 21 residential aged care facilities reported active COVID-19 outbreaks and a total of 64 new cases were reported in residents.

In the same week, 18 disability support providers were affected by COVID-19 exposure, and 11 service providers notified the health directorate of historical exposures.

Last Friday (17 June), Minister for Health Rachel Stephen-Smith announced an additional five historical COVID-19 deaths.

All five deaths occurred at one residential aged care facility in May but had not been reported due to “human error” at ACT Health.

Ms Stephen-Smith said it was too early to tell if it was “of concern” that five deaths had been reported at one facility.

“We had been well aware of that particular outbreak, which was significant … ACT Health worked very closely with that facility and they will now go back and do some work around the circumstances and the reporting of those deaths,” she said.

With the 837 (457 PCR and 380 RAT) cases recorded overnight, there are now 5,512 (2,924 PCR and 2,588 RAT) active infections in the Territory.

A total of 147,096 (88,747 PCR and 58,349 RAT) COVID-19 cases have been recorded since the pandemic began in March 2020.

Yesterday, the ACT reported 809 new COVID-19 infections.

There are now 89 people hospitalised with the virus. Of these, two are in the ICU but no one requires ventilation.

The double-dose vaccination rate for the ACT’s five-plus population remains 97.3 per cent and 77 per cent of residents aged 16 and older have received a booster.

Of ACT residents aged five to 11, 68.5 per cent have received two doses of vaccine.

Interstate, NSW has reported five deaths overnight and 6076 new cases of COVID-19.

There are now 1470 people in hospital with the virus and 58 people in ICUs around the state.

Victoria has reported no deaths overnight and 5661 cases of COVID-19.

There are now 418 people hospitalised with the virus, while 21 patients are in the state’s intensive care unit.