Interview: Omicron teaches Australia painful lessons, says virus expert

SYDNEY, Jan. 6 (Xinhua) -- One of Australia's leading epidemiologists, Professor Nancy Baxter believes there are hard-earned lessons to be learned from the nation's skyrocketing surge of COVID-19 cases.

Baxter, head of the University of Melbourne's School of Population and Global Health, told Xinhua on Thursday that the unprecedented rise of the Omicron variant was a great example to show the risk of relying on just one way of beating the virus, thereby missing "other things that could be really useful in dealing with the pandemic."

"Having high vaccine rates is absolutely critical to managing COVID-19," she said. "But we didn't really instruct people adequately about other strategies such as the importance of ventilation, to breathe safe air indoors or the use of high-quality masks."

She also noted that during the holiday season people did not consider density restrictions and limitations on socializing because it would have been too politically difficult.

Baxter is equally forthright about where else she believes politicians have fallen short in their response to the quickly accelerating crisis.

Leaders such as Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the premier of the state of New South Wales (NSW) Dominic Perrottet have been urging people to take more personal responsibility to safeguard their health, while they "learn to live" with COVID-19 throughout the Omicron outbreak.

"I think that message is implying we haven't been taking personal responsibility before," she said. "But I think people have already shown a remarkable amount of willingness to be responsible for their behavior during the pandemic."

The epicenter of the nation's massive outbreak is NSW, which on Thursday recorded 34,994 new cases and six deaths during the previous 24 hours.

She said the NSW government had previously adhered to a carefully tiered "roadmap" out of the pandemic, gradually easing health restrictions as vaccine rates grew and new case numbers of the Delta variant dwindled.

"We're going to have to wait and see because each state has a different blend of immunity and different level of vaccination," she said.

"But it currently looks like NSW will peak first since the outbreak started there and it has first been on a rapid trajectory earlier than other states," she added.