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Speaker 1: This is gam Nation with Jonesy aland well.

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Speaker 2: COVID cases are on the rise again. I don't know

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Speaker 2: if it's been talked enough, but there are growing calls

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Speaker 2: for a return to restrictions, not lockdowns, but restrictions like

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Speaker 2: mask wearing, social distancing, maybe going back to working from home.

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Speaker 2: And we do have the fourth boost available to everyone

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Speaker 2: over thirty. Karen Phelps, she's the former AMA president, she

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Speaker 2: is a current general practitioner. She is as concerned as

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Speaker 2: many people about this, doctor Karen.

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Speaker 1: Good morning, Good morning, Amanda, Hi Jonesy, Hello there, doctor Karen.

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Speaker 2: So how are you feeling with this? I know the

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Speaker 2: numbers of skyrocketing, which I guess we're in winter months.

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Speaker 2: It's the first winter since our last lockdown winter. How

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Speaker 2: alarmed should we be?

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Speaker 1: Well, as at GP, I'm obviously very concerned, and I

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Speaker 1: think everyone should be concerned because we now have over

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Speaker 1: three hundred thousand active cases in Australia. We've passed ten

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Speaker 1: thousand deaths from COVID and that number is of course rising,

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Speaker 1: and we are approaching a peak in July and August,

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Speaker 1: so the worst of it isn't over for this wave,

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Speaker 1: and there'll be other waves that follow it, because that

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Speaker 1: seems to be the pattern of coronavirus. Now. There are

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Speaker 1: currently over four thousand people in hospital in Australia and

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Speaker 1: our health workers are telling us that they're having trouble

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Speaker 1: coping not just with people with COVID and influenza and

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Speaker 1: the other respiratory illnesses, but also with other things that

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Speaker 1: they need to be dealing with, like accidents and heart

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Speaker 1: disease and all of the other things that people need

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Speaker 1: to go to hospital for. So we have to have

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Speaker 1: a circuit breaker. We have to have something that alerts

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Speaker 1: people to the danger of this going on as it is.

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Speaker 1: And the other thing that we're concerned about is not

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Speaker 1: just the deaths and hospitalization rates, which are serious enough,

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Speaker 1: but also the emerging problem of long COVID where people

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Speaker 1: are disabled for an indefinite period of time and.

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Speaker 3: Do you find that the people so the ICUs, So

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Speaker 3: there's people in ICU, but then the people on ventilators.

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Speaker 3: That was the biggest concern, wasn't is there more people

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Speaker 3: on ventilators now or the numbers aren't as high. That's

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Speaker 3: why the government's not really doing much about it.

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Speaker 1: Well, the ventilators were one metric. They were looking at

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Speaker 1: people on ventilators, people in hospital and death rates. But

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Speaker 1: those aren't the only measures that we need to look at.

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Speaker 1: We need to look at this long term disability called

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Speaker 1: long COVID, But we also need to look at at

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Speaker 1: how the systems that we all depend on are operating.

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Speaker 1: So we've got schools going back, how many teachers are

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Speaker 1: going to be able to go back to work, how

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Speaker 1: many will be laid off sick, how many won't be

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Speaker 1: going back to work because they don't want to keep

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Speaker 1: on repeatedly getting sick. So the education system is going

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Speaker 1: to come under strain as well. We've already seen the

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Speaker 1: airlines understrain with not being able to provide enough staff

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Speaker 1: internationally for a lot of flights to take off the

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Speaker 1: bagage to be properly handled. So a lot of systems

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Speaker 1: are not working efficiently now because so many people are sick.

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Speaker 1: So there are so many simple things that we can

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Speaker 1: do to stop this happening. Now we know that the

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Speaker 1: omicron BA four and five surges are upon us, and

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Speaker 1: a TARGETI who recommended the extra booster shots for certain

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Speaker 1: age groups and certain categories of people, they've actually said

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Speaker 1: that that is not the only thing that we can

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Speaker 1: do that. The greatest impact is going to be public

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Speaker 1: health measures like wearing masks and increasing use of anti

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Speaker 1: viral treatments in people who are diagnosed with COVID. The

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Speaker 1: best thing that we can do in terms of public

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Speaker 1: health is stopped getting infected in the first place, and

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Speaker 1: that's where these other measures come in, like a good

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Speaker 1: quality and ninety five mask.

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Speaker 2: I'm hearing also, and this is the most recent news,

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Speaker 2: people who've already had COVID it's only twenty days before

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Speaker 2: you can get it again.

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Speaker 1: I'm certainly seeing that in clinical practice, where people say,

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Speaker 1: hang on a second, I had COVID, I was in

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Speaker 1: bed for nine or ten days, and then got the

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Speaker 1: tested negative, and now I'm sick again after just a month.

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Speaker 1: The reinfection time is looking around about four or five weeks,

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Speaker 1: but I've certainly seen people have reinfection sooner than that.

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Speaker 1: And really, unless we suppress transmission, unless we get these

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Speaker 1: numbers right down, we are really making it so difficult

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Speaker 1: for everyone in the community, particularly people who are elderly

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Speaker 1: or immunocompromise. But we've got large groups of children who

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Speaker 1: can't get immunized, and we don't know what impact repeated

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Speaker 1: COVID infections are going to have on those children. We

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Speaker 1: don't know what impact it's going to have on people

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Speaker 1: of any age. And you can still get infected and

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Speaker 1: reinfected if you've been fully vaccinated. You can get long

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Speaker 1: covid even if you are fully vaccinated. So vaccines alone

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Speaker 1: are not going to get us there. We've got the measures,

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Speaker 1: we just need to use them. And the problem is

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Speaker 1: that we've recommended masks for month and months and months

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Speaker 1: and people are just not getting the message. If it

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Speaker 1: takes a mandate, then it takes a mandate because then

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Speaker 1: people will really, I think, in bigger numbers, get the message.

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Speaker 1: But the problem with a mandate is you have to

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Speaker 1: enforce it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and the thing I would hate to see is

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Speaker 3: go back into a lockdown. But certainly if they said, oh,

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Speaker 3: you've got to wear a mask, I'd be a right

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Speaker 3: with that, because it just seems strange. You get on

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Speaker 3: a plane you've got to wear a mask, but at

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Speaker 3: the airport you don't have to wear a mask. It's crazy.

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Speaker 1: There's a lot of things about these decisions that don't

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Speaker 1: make a lot of sense in public health terms. A

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Speaker 1: lot of these things are political or business decisions, you know,

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Speaker 1: but ultimately you don't have an economy without healthy people.

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Speaker 1: And so the more people that get into N ninety

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Speaker 1: five masks, hopefully by choice, the other thing is that

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Speaker 1: then they're better off with everyone will be the other

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Speaker 1: things that we can do quite simply at the open

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Speaker 1: windows ventilation really important, avoid crowds. You don't have to

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Speaker 1: get into a crowd, don't go to a crowd. Testing

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Speaker 1: regularly if you have symped, isolating if you're infectious. Employers

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Speaker 1: looking at more work from home options. Again, the schools

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Speaker 1: are going to need to look at flexible learning options.

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Speaker 1: But those really simple things like avoiding crowds, wearing a

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Speaker 1: good quality mask of an N ninety five type variety,

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Speaker 1: and opening windows, those are simple things that every one

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Speaker 1: of us can do right now to help the entire community.

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Speaker 2: And also i'd imagine even though you say that getting

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Speaker 2: vaccinated isn't enough, you would still suggest we get vaccinated

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Speaker 2: with our fourth booster.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I recommend that people follow the recommendations that are

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Speaker 1: set by a TIV. They look at the evidence all

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Speaker 1: around the world about what's happening with the different variants

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Speaker 1: that are emerging. But with the BA four and BA five,

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Speaker 1: and knowing that vaccination will reduce your risk of serious illness, hospitalization, debt,

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Speaker 1: and death, but it will not eliminate that risk for

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Speaker 1: you or for the community. Then I think that people

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Speaker 1: need to get the message that vaccines are very important,

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Speaker 1: but that's not the only that we need to do

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Speaker 1: to get this under control.

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Speaker 3: Well, thank you, doctor Karen Films. Just when we're out

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Speaker 3: of this thing, we're back in.

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Speaker 2: Well, we've never been out. We've never been No.

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Speaker 3: It is, but we'll get out there. We'll get out

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Speaker 3: there eventually, won't we. You would say that, wouldn't you, Karen.

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Speaker 1: It depends on how much attention we pay to the

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Speaker 1: public health measures. That's where it's really important that people

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Speaker 1: pay attention and don't be complacent and play your past.

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Speaker 2: There you go, Thanks doctor