The ACT chief health officer has urged Canberrans to take "personal responsibility" to help minimise the spread of COVID-19, however experts argued there has been unclear public policy.
In a video message released on Friday, Dr Kerryn Coleman described the period as challenging for the community and expected ongoing issues in the workforce, businesses, schools, hospitals and health services.
"Every corner of our community is feeling the impact of COVID-19 in some way," she said.
"I want to remind you how important it is that we all take personal responsibility to help minimise the impact of COVID-19 in our community and to assure you that the actions you take can make a difference."
In light of these comments, the ACT recorded three deaths and 1044 new cases on Saturday, the first time since June 21 multiple deaths occurred in one reporting period.
The state and federal governments have not implemented mask mandates, which the Australian Medical Association warned left doctors "bewildered, frustrated, and angry" by the mixed messaging.
Epidemiologist Adrian Esterman from the University of South Australia echoed this frustration.
"Clearly, the federal government and state and territory governments are very unwilling to reintroduce mandates of any sort. They don't think it'll be popular with the general public," he said.
"The Prime Minister on air said that he wasn't willing to introduce face mask mandates because compliance will be too difficult but there's evidence that when you introduce a face mask mandate, it greatly boosts the number of people who do wear them.
"My thoughts are that if they're not going to introduce face mask mandates ... the least they can do is provide much better messaging to the general public."
Professor Esterman said there should be more clarity on why it is "so important that people should get their third shot" and why it is "so important that people wear face masks".
"For example, cloth masks provide almost no protection against these new Omicron subvariants," he said.
The latest epidemiological report dated from July 11 to July 17 found a decrease in case numbers for the first time in five weeks.
"[The ACT] appears to have gone past the third Omicron wave, which means that two weeks after you've gone past it, hospitalisations will start coming down if they're not already starting to come down and then hopefully deaths will be less likely as well," Professor Esterman said.
"I think one of the reasons why we've been seeing this peak of deaths in the last two or three weeks across Australia is probably more of a winter thing."
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