Prime Minister Scott Morrison insists the time for the “heavy hand of government” has passed despite Australia’s cumulative new daily infections surpassing 4500.
Pressure is mounting from experts including Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly for states and territories to adopt uniform indoor mask mandates, but Mr Morrison doesn’t agree.
“As a country, we’ve got to get past the heavy hand of government and we’ve got to treat Australians like adults,” he said.
The Australian Medical Association is calling on states and territories to agree on a unified approach to tackling Omicron.
“Tightening public health restrictions should not be seen as a policy failure,” president Omar Khorshid said.
“COVID-19 has thrown many different challenges at governments, and we need to be able to respond to these, otherwise we put people’s lives and livelihoods at risk.”
The Royal Australasian College of Physicians wants governments to bring back, or maintain, mandatory indoor masks and QR code check-ins across the board.
They also call for indoor crowd caps reintroduced over the Christmas and New Year period.
Mr Morrison will meet with premiers and chief ministers on Wednesday.
“Tomorrow is an opportunity for us to compare notes to get the most recent information,” he said.
“When we last met last Friday week, there was a lot we still didn’t know about Omicron. We know more now.”
Premiers want Australia’s COVID-19 booster program sped up as pressure mounts on states to agree to uniform pandemic restrictions to curb surging Omicron infections.
Morrison also accused states of slowing the vaccine rollout amid disruptions to booster supplies.
“Over the last few months, the number of places that the Commonwealth has directly supported in vaccination has increased,” Mr Morrison told reporters in Queensland on Tuesday.
“But the states have been pulling theirs back over the last couple of months and it is time to switch those back on.”
More than 1.3 million Australians have received a booster shot. The double-dose vaccination rate for people aged 16 and older is sitting around 90.5 per cent.
States are pushing for a shorter booster shot interval as the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation weighs up cutting the recommended wait time from five months.
Consideration is also being given to whether people will need three doses, not two, to be considered fully vaccinated.
Meanwhile, there’s a push to make rapid antigen tests free as many traditional testing sites across the country are overwhelmed and demand forces some to close.
“We need a certain nimbleness that we haven’t had to date in terms of thinking about how we do alter the testing procedures,” University of Melbourne epidemiologist Nancy Baxter told ABC radio.
She favoured incorporating rapid antigen tests into Australia’s existing official screening regime.
NSW recorded 3057 new infections and two more deaths on Monday. There were 1245 cases in Victoria alongside six additional deaths.
South Australia reported 154 new infections, Queensland 86, the ACT 16, the Northern Territory 14 and Tasmania four.
By Georgie Moore in Canberra
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