Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House of Representatives) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] My question is to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister and the Minister for Health and Aged Care have both said that having no COVID patients in intensive care is a measure of the government's success. How many COVID patients in how many states are in intensive care today?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The information that I have available to me on those figures currently is that, in hospital, there are 925 people; in ICU, there are 155; and those who are on ventilators, 63. What I also know is, this year, in the middle of this wave of the pandemic in New South Wales, over the course of these many months, some 92 people have passed away in New South Wales over the course of 2021. What we know is that, when the second wave went through Victoria this same time last year, 820 people passed away over the course of 2020 in Victoria. The overwhelming majority of those who passed away in Victoria last year were in residential aged care. And what we have been able to achieve this year, prior to these most recent waves hitting New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT, is that we have double-dose vaccination rates in our aged-care facilities upwards of 80 per cent. And what that has meant is that our most vulnerable in our community this year, because of the vaccines, compared to last year, and in particular the priority we placed on vaccinating those in residential aged-care facilities and ensuring that we were able to visit all of those facilities to ensure that those double-dose vaccinations were provided—that has saved hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of lives. I want to thank the in-reach teams, I want to thank all of those who were part of them—the clinical staff, those who prepared and planned them, Professor Murphy, General Frewen, and others—who ensured that, by putting in place those arrangements, so many lives have been spared this year as a result of the second and third waves that we've seen come through our cities.

In addition to that, I appreciate the work that Professor Murphy has been doing. It has been ongoing work for many, many months to ensure that he has been working with the heads of the health departments of all the states and territories to ensure that our state health systems and hospital systems are in a position of resilience to deal with further demands placed on their system. And we know, from the information that has been presented, that in ICUs we can anticipate around about up to 20 per cent, in New South Wales, of their capacity being used up because of COVID and, for the rest of the country, that's around 10 per cent over the next week or so. So we're working closely with the states and territories to ensure that the resilience is in place there in those state health systems. Further work was tasked again on Friday, and I'm expecting that back over the course of this week. I want to thank Professor Murphy and all the secretaries, all the health departments around our country, to make sure our hospital system is resilient to deal with the health challenges that are ahead. (Time expired)