Casual workers who get COVID will again be able to access pandemic leave payments until the end of September after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reversed his decision to stick with the original end date. auspol
Australia’s winter COVID wave is expected to peak in August, Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly told an emergency national cabinet on Saturday.
Subsidies for longer telehealth consults are also being temporarily reintroduced so doctors have time to assess patients for COVID treatments. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese moved the national cabinet meeting forward after receiving a health briefing on Friday evening.Albanese said there had been “no change in position” over the pandemic payment. It was a temporary measure introduced by the previous government, he said, which was now being extended based on health advice.
“This is a fair way going forward. All of the states and territories, as well as the Commonwealth, understand that emergency payments are just that — they can’t continue forever given the fiscal constraints that are on government at all levels, but that this is an appropriate measure going forward,” he said.
“There is no shortage of RAT tests in Australia and the Commonwealth has paid for half of every one of them,” he said., but Albanese said the chief medical officers noted this year’s flu season has passed its peak, but the current strains of coronavirus were highly infectious.
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