Hospitals are being overrun by Covid and flu cases, with one minister admitting modelling had failed to match the current predicament.
Covid-19 modelling released earlier this year failed to predict how intense the latest wave would be, Queensland’s health minister has admitted.
The admission comes as the state reported a further 6,682 new cases for the last 24-hour period, with the number of active cases now nudging 50,000.
There are 967 Queensland hospital beds taken up with Covid or influenza patients.
At the same time, another 2477 health staff are off sick with Covid, placing strain on the hospital system.
Health Minister Yvette D’Ath was asked about the situation in light of Covid modelling released earlier this year.
“We thought, and the advice we were getting and the modelling we saw at the start of the year, is you’d expect … we’d keep having waves for months and years but they would slowly reduce and our immunity would build,” Ms D’Ath told reporters on Monday.
“But with these new variants and sub-variants, we’re not seeing that.
“We’re now seeing higher waves than we did before.
“We don’t know what’s coming but we know what we can do to try to slow down the spread.”
Ms D’Ath, however, said it was “just modelling” and while experts were doing their best to predict the impact of Covid, its future path remained unknown.
“We can never completely remove it. But we know what we can do to slow down the spread and no matter what the modelling shows, we can all do our bit by getting vaccinated, wearing masks, santishing and washing our hands properly and staying home when unwell,” she said.
“All really simple things we all have control over that can make a difference.”
Australian Medical Association of Queensland president Maria Boulton painted a bleak picture on Monday of how the already stretched health system was being overrun by Covid and flu cases.
“I was at an emergency department a few weeks ago, and what I was seeing, I saw stretchers on the corridors with people waiting to be admitted into emergency and paramedics waiting with them until they were admitted,” she told Brisbane radio 4BC.
“I saw ambulances waiting outside ramped, waiting for their patients to come into the hospital.
“I saw patients who had been in emergency for at least 23 hours, waiting for a bed in the hospital.
“The emergency departments are overrun.”
Originally published as Covid modelling failed to predict intensity of latest wave, minister says
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