Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care Services) Share this | Hansard source

Those figures will depend on the amount of virus being transmitted through the community. I think it's a ridiculous thing for the senator to state across the chamber, because the information will be dependent on the amount of virus being transmitted through the community and on the various variants of the virus that might be being transmitted at that point in time. We know that the delta variant, for example, is much more transmissible than the alpha variant was. The virus continues to mutate, and the effects of that are being felt and learnt in respect of the way that the virus moves through the community. But we do know one thing. There are a range of principles we can follow to protect ourselves: social distancing; processes that we're working on with the states with respect to the restriction of movement; and, of course, vaccination.