CHO: Why Queenslanders shouldn’t be worried about new variants

There are a number of Covid variants circulating in Queensland as immunity in the community wanes, warns the chief health officer.

Queensland’s exposure to the devastation of the Omicron variant should provide immunity protection against the weaker strains currently circulating the state, according to the health boss.

Chief health officer John Gerrard warned a new Covid-19 wave could emerge in the coming weeks due to the waning immunity in the community but said the new variants were significantly less severe than previous strains.

The XBB strain, which is resistant to vaccines and antibodies from previous infections, emerged in Singapore a few weeks ago.

Queensland chief health officer John Gerrard said the new variants weren’t classified as a concern. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Tertius Pickard

Within a week, it went from making up one fifth of the country’s Covid-19 cases to more than a half. Cases have now been detected in Australia.

As health authorities adopt a new three-step approach to advising the community to manage life with Covid, the health boss said there were a number of variants emerging in the state but none have been classified by the World Health Organisation as a concern.

“The symptoms associated with these variants is no worse than the current strains we are seeing,” Dr Gerrard told reporters on Monday.

“It does appear Omicron infection induced immunity will protect us against those sub variants, and almost all Queenslanders who have been infected with the virus have been infected with the Omicron strain.

“It is reasonable to assume at least two-thirds to three-quarters of Queenslanders have now had Covid-19 with the Omicron strain, which will certainly provide some protection against these new strains.”

Queensland Health revealed its new Covid management plan after state parliament passed a bill last week to dramatically scale back the chief health officer’s emergency powers.

Dr Gerrard will no longer able to shut the state’s border, lock down cities and mandate vaccinations for the general public.

📣 New COVID-19 traffic light system 🚥
Living with COVID-19 means recognising and responding when the risk increases and decreases.
Here's the latest on the new system. 👇 pic.twitter.com/6zuiRDU5lR

— Queensland Health (@qldhealth) October 31, 2022

Instead, health authorities will adopt a new plan based off a traffic light system theme — with specific advice for varying levels of concern.

“Living with Covid-19 means recognising and responding when the risk increases and decreases,” Queensland Health posted on social media.

The chief health officer said more variants and the affiliated surge in case numbers will “wax and wane and eventually the virus will meld into the background of other respiratory viruses”.

“Whether that takes 12 months or five years, that’s not clear,” Dr Gerrard said.

“So it will be with us, it will be there, and we need to know what to do.

“We just don’t need to be as anxious about it as we were before and we need to be up to date with our vaccines, particularly if we are at higher risk of infection.”