COVID Care in Community Service, Western NSW Local Health District, Dubbo, New South Wales, Australia.
Emergency Department, Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Emerg Med Australas. 2023 Aug;35(4):672-675. doi: 10.1111/1742-6723.14225. Epub 2023 May 2.
Australia was a world leader in managing the earlier waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. Subsequently, three major turning points changed the trajectory of the pandemic: mass vaccinations, emergence of more transmissible variants and re-opening of Australia's borders. However, there were also concomitant missteps and premature shifts in pandemic response policy that led to mixed messaging, slow initial vaccination uptake and minimal mitigation measures in response to the Omicron variant. The latter marked Australia's entry into a new phase of (or approach to) the pandemic: widespread transmission. This led to an exponential increase in cases and significant impacts on the health system, particularly, EDs. This paper reflects on this phase of the pandemic to urge for system-level changes that instal better safeguards for ED capacity, safety and staff well-being for future pandemics. This is essential to strengthening our health system's resilience and to better protecting our communities against such emergencies.
澳大利亚在应对 COVID-19 大流行的早期浪潮方面处于世界领先地位。随后，三个重大转折点改变了大流行的轨迹：大规模疫苗接种、传染性更强的变体出现和澳大利亚边境重新开放。然而，也有一些伴随而来的失误和大流行应对政策的过早转变，导致信息混乱、最初疫苗接种速度缓慢以及对奥密克戎变体的缓解措施不足。后者标志着澳大利亚进入大流行的新阶段（或方法）：广泛传播。这导致病例呈指数级增长，并对卫生系统造成重大影响，特别是急诊科。本文反思了这一大流行阶段，敦促进行系统层面的变革，为急诊科的能力、安全和工作人员福祉提供更好的保障，以应对未来的大流行。这对于加强我们的卫生系统的弹性和更好地保护我们的社区免受此类紧急情况至关重要。
