Active COVID-19 Cases Drop By More Than 4000 In WA - WAtoday

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The number of active COVID-19 cases in Western Australia has dropped below 50,000, which coincided with a decrease in the number of PCR tests conducted and positive results.

But the number of patients with COVID-19 in hospitals increased to 231 people overnight, although intensive care unit cases remained steady at six.

There were also five historical deaths reported overnight for people aged in their 50s to 80s, taking the total WA death toll for people with the virus to 65 since the start of the pandemic.

A further 8145 new cases of COVID-19 reported overnight in total. The seven-day average of new cases has dropped from a peak of 8450 on April 2 to 8100 as of Tuesday.

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WA Premier Mark McGowan took to the airwaves on Tuesday where he was confronted with questions about the state’s strained health system.

He told ABC Perth there were a number of factors impacting the ambulance network with about 10 per cent of the workforce furloughed because they were COVID-19 positive.

“Secondly, the number of people calling triple-zero has climbed significantly, including a 28 per cent increase in people calling with respiratory illness,” Mr McGowan said.

“Most of those people should not call triple-zero, but they are and they’re staying on the line.”

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The Premier said paramedics having to change their personal protective equipment after every patient was also adding to delays.

St John Ambulance has not been hitting its targets for call-out response times and ramping at public hospitals went above 5000 hours last month.

Mr McGowan also responded to questions on how long vaccine mandates would be around and said he wanted to see third-dose vaccination rates reach very high levels.

“We’ve got to get to high levels of third-dose vaccination, if I say, ‘in two weeks time we’re not doing it’, well a lot of people won’t get their third dose and therefore will make themselves vulnerable to hospitalisation,” he said.

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• Coronavirus pandemic
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Peter de Kruijff was a reporter at WAtoday focused on environment, politics and business.Connect via X or email.AdvertisementAdvertisementWAtodayTwitterFacebookInstagramRSS

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