Canberrans who are exposed to the Omicron variant of COVID-19 from Saturday will spend Christmas Day in quarantine, with health authorities unlikely to reduce the isolation requirements for the new variant.
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Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said health authorities would monitor new information about the Omicron variant each day, but a 14-day quarantine period was the current health advice for contacts.
"Unfortunately, this is the world that we're living in. We do have to live with COVID but part of that means that people who are exposed as close contacts, and particularly those who are unvaccinated or those who've been exposed to the Omicron variant, do need to quarantine to protect the rest of the community," Ms Stephen-Smith said.
"It is a really unfortunate and difficult circumstance for those people, but we do have to take this situation really seriously, because we all want to get through summer with the minimum possible impact of the pandemic."
Seven cases of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 have been identified in the ACT to 8pm on Thursday, at which point there were approximately 380 people in quarantine after being exposed to the variant.
Ms Stephen-Smith said the ACT was taking a precautionary approach to the variant by requiring 14 days of quarantine for close contacts and household contacts.
"This is a very new strain and variant of COVID-19, where we just need to understand what's happening and that evidence base increases every day," she said.
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Calwell Primary School was listed as an exposure site on Friday, after a COVID-positive person attended the school on Monday and Tuesday.
Ms Stephen-Smith said to the ACT's knowledge, it was not an exposure of the Omicron variant, and the school was not closed; advice had been provided to the families of a combined year 1 and 2 class affected.
Health authorities are working through the logistics of rolling out COVID-19 vaccines to five-to-11 year olds, which will begin in Australia on January 10 after the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation signed off on the jabs.
Ms Stephen-Smith said the ACT and Commonwealth governments were working together to be ready to start the rollout to the cohort of 46,000 children, with further announcements to be made next week.
"We're really looking at making sure people will be able to make family bookings, so that if they've got multiple children or they've got parents and carers who need to get their booster dose, everyone can come in at once and get their vaccination together. That of course will help to give confidence to children as well," she said.
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Jasper Lindell
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
