Experts urge Queenslanders to work from home where possible as ‘simple strategy’ to reduce transmission

Health experts have urged Queenslanders to help reduce Covid transmission by working from home, while also criticising the lack of transparent government reporting of case numbers.

Queenslanders are being urged to work from home to reduce Covid-19 transmission during the state’s fourth Omicron wave.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced the fourth wave last week following a 97 per cent increase in hospitalisations, with the state moving to amber on the traffic light system.

Infectious diseases expert Dr Paul Griffin said working from home where feasible could be a “simple strategy” to slowing the spread of Covid.

Dr Griffin’s comments come after public health experts in NSW called for work from home mandates during that state’s worsening Covid wave.

“I think, particularly where the job includes being in proximity to large numbers of people, that it would be wise whenever transmission increases to work from home at least for a proportion of time,” Dr Griffin said.

“It’s a simple strategy that we’re probably going to recommend periodically whenever we encounter these waves as they continue.”

In September, as a part of the state government’s easing on public health measures during the pandemic, Queensland Health stopped daily Covid-19 reporting and replaced it with a weekly report of the numbers released every Friday.

Dr Paul Griffin. Picture: supplied

But Dr Griffin said the traffic light system failed to provide enough detail on the trajectory of the wave and would support the return of daily Covid-19 reporting during outbreaks.

“I think at the moment we’re not necessarily getting that message out there,” he said.

“At least have those numbers available somewhere so that the people who want to see them can have a look and so if things are heading in the wrong direction people can know as soon as possible to pivot to working from home or getting their masks back on.”

Without daily numbers, Dr Griffin said he was keen to see the government up the ante on surveillance measures like wastewater testing as a way of tracking the virus’ activity throughout the state.

“It’s (wastewater testing) a really sensitive tool for looking at what variants are there and exactly where the virus is circulating,” he said.

“Maybe it can be scaled back in terms of frequency if costs or resources are an issue, but I think it’s going to be a valuable tool going forward.”

The return of wastewater testing was also backed by infectious diseases expert Professor Nigel McMillan who said the surveillance measure was stopped “too quickly” by the government.

“We should be testing wastewater … The virus is going to have a grand old time because we’re really not doing anything,” he said.

“The amber alert system, while useful for communication, is going to do nothing.”

Prof McMillan said more needed to be done to stop reinfection with new studies showing there was a much higher risk of serious health issues after catching the virus more than once.

“If we start seeing huge pressure on our hospitals, they will need to think more seriously about mandating masks,” he said.

“It’s a simple health measure that’s really not inconvenient to people and we’ve seen its effect before.”

There’s been “vast under reporting” of daily cases, according to Prof McMillan who said Queenslanders were being too “complacent” amid the latest wave.

“We’ve had more than 13,000 deaths this year, it’s on track to becoming our number one killer this year, and it’s sort of gone under the radar in some way,” he said.