Health experts are preparing for a nightmare scenario in Australia, with early data from both overseas examples and the local outbreak showing the Delta strain is more severe as well as being harder to contain.
Health workers taking swab samples from residents at a Covid-19 drive-through testing clinic in Sydney on 28 July, 2021.
Photo: AFP or/ Saeed Khan
The warning comes as early data from the NSW outbreak shows more people are in hospital intensive care wards than during the peak of Victoria s second-wave outbreak, which had substantially more active cases.
The raw data from NSW is backed up by early studies out of Canada, Scotland and Singapore, which show the Delta strain appears to be associated with a higher risk of hospitalisation and death.
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Professor Shaun Hendy says he doesn t think travel with Australia needs to stop completely, as long as there are tight internal restrictions between its states. However, he says New South Wales will not get on top of the virus under its current lockdown regime.
Jenny Evans/Getty Images
New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian speaks during a Covid-19 update press conference on July 22 in Sydney, Australia. Lockdown restrictions have been further tightened as the state continues to record new community cases and work to stop the spread of the highly infectious Delta coronavirus strain in the community. They ve obviously tightened the restrictions in New South Wales in the last week, but I think they will probably need to tighten further, he told RNZ National programme