ACT records one new COVID-19 death, five historical; students at seven schools now learning remotely

ACT Health is today reporting six COVID-19 deaths.

One of these, a woman in her 70s, was in the latest reporting period while the other five were historical.

The additional five deaths occurred during May 2022 and were a woman in her 70s, a man in his 70s, and three women in their 90s.

It takes the Territory’s total pandemic death toll to 74.

Health attributed the reporting delays to an internal delay in processing information provided by a residential aged care facility.

It comes as the ACT records 962 new COVID-19 infections in the latest reporting period.

Seven ACT public schools have now switched to temporary remote learning due to teacher shortages.

The latest schools to send students home are Kingsford Smith School, Ngunnawal Primary School and Turner Primary School.

Students in Years 3 to 5 at Kingsford Smith will learn remotely until Thursday next week (23 June). However, they will not return to campus until Monday, 27 June as Friday (24 June) is a school planning day.

Their peers in Year 5 and 6 at Turner Primary School and preschoolers at Ngunnawal will also be undertaking remote learning until Wednesday, 22 June.

Year 5 and 6 at Giralang Primary School will return to school on Tuesday, 22 June. This was incorrectly reported as 23 June yesterday due to an error in the ACT Education Directorate’s information.

Year 9 and 10 at Namadgi School, P-K at Southern Cross Early Childhood School and Year 11 and 12 at the Woden School will all complete their final day of remote learning today.

Schools, which were already experiencing a teacher shortage, continue to be challenged by the pandemic’s ongoing workforce impacts.

In an email sent to parents, Turner Primary School principal Allison Edmonds said they had experienced limited teacher availability since the beginning of the term “primarily due to staff isolating as household contacts”.

She said this had now reached a point where all classes could not run face-to-face.

The 962 (520 PCR and 442 RAT) cases recorded overnight take the total number of active infections in the Territory to 4874 (2458 PCR and 2416 RAT).

A total of 144,597 (87,333 PCR and 57,264 RAT) COVID-19 cases have been recorded since the pandemic began in March 2020.

Yesterday, the ACT reported 1015 new COVID-19 infections. It was the first time daily cases had crossed the 1000 mark in over a month.

There are now 87 people hospitalised with the virus. Of these, two are in the ICU and 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.

Due to strong demand for COVID-19 and flu vaccinations, the Access and Sensory Vaccination Clinic is expanding its opening hours on Saturday from 8:30 am to 8:30 pm (previously 8:30 am to 3 pm). Extended hours will commence tomorrow (18 June).