Following a national cabinet meeting on Friday, the Australian government has ended the “emergency” era of its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
From October 14, mandatory isolation for COVID-19 will be scrapped, with pandemic leave payments also ending with the exception of people in
Chief medical officer Paul Kelly said the government acted on his advice and stressed it was a “context-specific and timing-specific set of recommendations”.
“It does not in any way suggest that the pandemic is finished. We will almost certainly see future peaks of the virus into the future, as we have seen earlier in this year,” Kelly said.
The CMO continued to say Australia had low rates of cases and hospitalisations, with a high rate of immunity and vaccination.
“It is time to move away from COVID exceptionalism, in my view, and we should be thinking about what we do to protect people from any respiratory disease.
“It does not mean we have somehow magically changed the infectiousness of this virus. It is still infectious. But in the context that we are in at the moment in Australia, and this is an important epidemiological point: we can’t look at isolation by itself.”
On Friday morning, prior to the announcement, Victorian chief health officer Brett Sutton tweeted from the official account, sharing an article on how new COVID variants could have increased immunity.
“Sleepwalking into COVID is not a strategy I would recommend. Still much remains uncertain,” Sutton said.
Sleepwalking into COVID is not a strategy I would recommend. Still much remains uncertain. https://t.co/vtEQ1V2HoG
— Chief Health Officer, Victoria (@VictorianCHO) September 29, 2022
With the ending of isolation requirements, for many workers, a question remains of what it means for working from home arrangements.
CPSU national secretary Melissa Donnelly told The Mandarin she would continue to seek clearer work-from-home rights in the upcoming APS bargaining.
“Access to working from home will remain an important control measure to reduce the risk of workplace transmission, for as long as we are living with COVID-19. Reducing transmission through access to working from home where needed ensures the public service capability is not compromised so that the APS can continue to serve the public,” Donelly said.
“Working from home has been an existing right in many public sector agreements for some time, as part of workplace flexibility provisions.”
As previously reported by The Mandarin, the key bargaining points between the CPSU and the APS chiefs have been working from home and other flexible working conditions.
:
Work from home rights now a major bargaining issue: CPSU report
Any feedback or news tips? Here’s where to contact the relevant team.