Asked on Monday morning if Omicron had spread faster than he had expected,Mr Morrison said nobody had a “crystal ball” but that the severity of the strain had turned out to be lower than first thought.
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“Early on we were thinking about a 30 to 50 per cent lesser severity and it has ended up being about a 75 per cent less severity,” he said.
“Its rate of escalation has been very strong and I would agree that has been moving at a very quick rate compared to our early estimates.”
“Has it spread faster than you expected?” the journalist asked. “You just said it’s not as bad – has it spread faster?”
“What I said was it has increased higher than the estimates that we saw. I think that’s a fairly direct answer,” Mr Morrison replied.
Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly said Australia was now experiencing the same surge that had occurred in other parts of the world.
“That is new for us but that is the reality – it’s a reality of living with COVID. We will have cases and when you have such a transmissible virus they will spread quickly and the case numbers will go up,” he said.
“But they are mostly mild or asymptomatic. We have to remember that,very,very much so.
“Our approach nationally has been to suppress the virus to make sure that our healthcare system is coping,and it is coping.”
Professor Kelly said there were challenges in NSW and Victoria but the government had expected and planned for those challenges,with “surge plans” in place.
But some medical experts have accused the government of failing to plan for Omicron while Australians deal with a shortage of rapid antigen tests while case numbers rise.
OzSage,a group of experts including epidemiologist Raina MacIntyre and economist Richard Holden,both from the University of New South Wales,called on Monday for a “course correction” in government policy to slow the spread of the new strain.
“Australian governments must immediately take action to tackle the present COVID crisis by delaying the return to face-to-face schooling,and reinstating necessary infection mitigations and financial supports,” said the OzSage group,which has 11 executive members.
“The health system is under immense strain,businesses are shutting due to sick staff. Consumer spending estimates show Australians are in a shadow lockdown already.”
The group said every Australian should have access to free rapid antigen tests and N95/P2 masks.
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Mr Albanese said on Sunday the government had taken a “let it rip” approach while being too slow to supply vaccines and test kits.
“If you fail to plan,you’re planning to fail. And Scott Morrison has been too interested in saying,‘She’ll be right,mate’. And we saw him joking about living with COVID at the cricket. And I think people will look at those remarks and just say,‘How out of touch are you?’ Because so many people are doing it so tough at the moment,” Mr Albanese said.
Mr Morrison denied taking a “let it rip” approach.
“The fact is that Omicron has changed everything,” he said.
“If Labor are for lockdowns,that’s for them. My government is for keeping Australia open and pushing through.”
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