Australia smashed by Omicron with growing cases, Covid testing delays and lab errors

As Australia approaches a grim two-year anniversary of life with Covid, the past week of Omicron havoc has many of us wondering what could be next.

Australia is approaching its second pandemic anniversary, with the first case of Covid-19 detected in Victoria on January 25, 2020.

While our national vaccine rollout was supposed to help protect Australians against future lockdowns and gradually open our state and international borders, the arrival of a new variant, Omicron, has significantly changed this trajectory.

With roughly three days of 2021 left, Australians’ plans have been thrown into chaos.

Unforeseen problem in rising daily infections

Since the beginning of December – just days after Omicron was detected in Sydney – Australia’s national Covid cases have increased exponentially.

Nationally, Australia recorded a daily increase in cases of 1440 on December 1, with that number hitting 10,001 on December 28. The 28-day period has also seen many states and territories surpass their daily case records again and again .

South Australia broke its pandemic record with 838 new cases on Monday. For the first time on Tuesday, Queensland recorded a four-digit daily increase of 1158, nearly 400 more cases than the day before.

NSW and Victoria have also seen rapidly increasing daily figures. Tuesday also saw Victoria achieve an unenviable record 2738 new infections, with NSW also recording 6062 – the state’s fourth day of recording 6000+ cases.

Even Western Australia – the country’s last defender of Covid-zero – saw an outbreak after an unvaccinated French backpacker entered the state from Queensland and attended a rave. Since that event, the state has recorded 12 new locally acquired cases from December 22 to December 27.

While Australia’s hospitalisation rate has not increased so dramatically (nationally Australia recorded 532 hospitalisations on Dec 1 and 1130 of Dec 28), there’s a fear increased infections will also naturally lead to a rise in hospitalisations and ICU admissions.

News.com.au understands hospitals in NSW are bracing for a surge as Omicron cases rise, as it is often people in the later part of their infection who are admitted.

Covid Testing queues in Melbourne at the Town Hall, on Christmas Day. Picture: Alex Coppel.

Testing delays

With Omicron’s increased transmissibility, it’s no surprise cases have increased. But it’s also played havoc with testing facilities across many states and territories.

Testing sites and pathology labs for PCR tests have been slammed with those seeking tests, from close contacts, people showing symptoms and others needing to satisfy travel requirements.

The result is an unprecedented burden on the clinics and pathology labs, with severely increased wait times to in accessing a test and the processing and delivery of results. In some cases, anxious residents have had to wait four or more days before receiving results.

Similar details of lengthy queues stretching to multiple hours and people being turned away at testing sites have flooded social media, Australia-wide.

On Monday, there were reports from NSW’s Coffs Harbour clinics that people had begun sleeping in their cars overnight, with the major testing site reaching capacity by midday.

Reports are that people have been in the covid testing line at the stadium in Coffs since 11pm last night… sleeping in their cars to ensure they get a test. People are almost at breaking point. @nbnnewspic.twitter.com/DeYvJxJLDk

— Alison Paul (@AlisonPaulCoffs) December 26, 2021

In the wake of unprecedented delays, lab processing mistakes also saw a St Vincents-owned Sydney lab, SydPath, incorrectly administer 1000 negative test results when their samples had yet to be finalised.

About half of these people were in fact infected with Covid-19.

The announcement on Monday evening followed a Sunday bungle in which the same lab mistakenly told 400 positive cases they were negative, potentially exposing thousands of people during Christmas celebrations.

Speaking to Today, a high-level former worker at SydPath, and now operations director at another lab, Histopath, said the mistakes were evidence of the overwhelming pressure testing staff are under.

“I can certainly confirm that the pressure is overwhelming and that alternative sources need to be found,” said Greg Granger.

“The rapid antigen testing is one that comes to mind.

Mr Granger stood behind SydPath, and said with “complete authority” that their systems are “entirely robust and the team in microbiology are world class”.

“For that to happen over there does show the immense pressure that the system is under.”

Two or three-week delay for rapid tests

While Mr Granger said rapid antigen could be an alternative to PCR tests, especially when it comes to travel, supply chain issues may prevent this from becoming a reality.

As interstate testing requirements pivots from PCR to rapid antigen tests, supply chain issues may prevent the self-administered tests from becoming a suitable alternative.

Previously, speaking to news.com.au, the president of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, Trent Twomey said shortages could continue for the next two to three weeks. In regional communities, like Professor’s Twomey’s pharmacies in Far North Queensland, stocks were down to just “dozens”.

“We do have regional outages and there will be a delay before more stock enters the pipeline,” he said.

“I think it’s a sensible approach that we change from mandatory PCR to mandatory rapid antigen tests.

“The pathology system is not coping and (doesn’t have) the adequate turnarounds that are needed to not disrupt people’s travel plans, but in order to do that we need to have adequate stock of these rapid antigen tests, and at this very point in time, we don’t.”

Holiday, Christmas plans in limbo

With cases on the rise and testing delays threatening travel plans, the return to normal life promised by high vaccination rates undeniably feels threatened.

What was once the busiest period for hospitality, several venues and large restaurant groups in Sydney and Melbourne have announced temporary closures during the holiday period due to a lack of staff caused by infection and isolation rules for close contacts.

One of Sydney’s biggest restaurant groups Solotel (which operates Chiswick, Goros and Chophouse) has closed their venues after a staff Omicron infection resulted in the cancellation of 2000 guests per day.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, CEO Elliot Solomon said: “I don’t think anyone expected that when we reopened we’d have more Covid cases than ever.”

“It’s definitely not a sustainable way to run a business; I’m not sure what the solution is.”

Financially, the co-founder of another Sydney hospitality group, ESCA, which includes restaurants Nour, Henrietta and Lilymu, says customer cancellations due to Covid concerns has seen a loss of $50,000 to $80,000 in profit.

“I feel like we are a boxing pad, everyone is punching the hospitality industry left, right and centre,” said ESCA’s co-founder Ibrahim Moubadder, speaking to news.com.au.

Australia’s already hard-hit travel sector has also continued to suffer under Omicron. Internationally, a total of 6300 flights were scrapped on the Christmas weekend alone, according to Flightaware.com. In Australia, Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin caused pandemonium when they cancelled more than 80 domestic flights due to staff shortages on Christmas Eve.

Airlines blamed Omicron for preventing pilots and flight attendants from working, leaving passengers stranded.

Nation that could offer glimpse of hope

As 2021 comes to a close, there’s undoubtedly a lot of uncertainty in the coming months, with health experts clashing not only with governments but also each other.

However recent reports of South Africa’s battle with Omicron and studies released about the new variant and its behaviour in other countries could hint an Omicron outbreak will just be a few months long.

Cases in the strain’s potential place of origin boomed from zero in mid-November to a high of more than 26,000 new daily cases in early December. They’ve since sharply dropped to a low of just over 5600 new cases on December 26.

The stark decline has led Francois Venter, a medical professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg to predict to The Times that the variant could be “pretty much gone” from South Africa by the end of January. Compared to hospitalisations from other variants, like Delta, the country’s admissions and deaths didn’t comparatively rise with their case numbers either.

While emergence of the highly mutated Omicron variant, first detected in South Africa in November sparked fears it could cause severe disease, studies have shown the strain is actually more mild. Picture: Luca Sola/AFP.

“It is an unprecedented infectious diseases event,” he said. “Omicron cases have raced through the population — it has moved so quickly that contact tracing, isolation, quarantine or any traditional containment measures are a total waste of time.”

Furthermore, a preliminary study from the UK Health Security Agency also found that the Omicron variant reduces the likelihood of hospitalisation between 50 to 70 per cent.

NSW Health officials also said Omicron infections were five times less likely to cause severe illness than Delta as well.

While potential return to normal isn’t guaranteed – only time will reveal the next phase of the pandemic – a little bit of cautious optimism would be a welcome addition to the new year.