Peak medical groups have renewed their calls for the West Australian government to reinstate public health measures, warning of a "system collapse" from the state's current trajectory of COVID-19 hospitalisations.
There are now 314 people in hospital with the virus, which has breached the threshold that medical experts say should trigger the reintroduction of restrictions like the mask mandate.
Both the Australian Medical Association and the Australian Nursing Federation have today repeated calls for public health measures to be reintroduced.
ANF Secretary Mark Olson — who spoke virtually today due to being a close contact — refuted Mr McGowan's claims that COVID-19 hospital admissions were under control.
"You've got record ambulance ramping, and it looks like we're on track for another record month," Mr Olson said.
AMA predicts hospital admissions to reach 400
Meanwhile, AMA WA president Mark Duncan-Smith said he expected the number of people in hospital with COVID-19 to reach 400 in the next one to two weeks.
"The hospital system is going to show major stress and crisis for the next two weeks, including increased critical ramping, critical ambulance shortages … increased furloughing of staff," he said.
"We're going to get critical problems, which are direct result of that inability to act and reintroduce masks."
Dr Duncan-Smith said Fiona Stanley Hospital's emergency department was full and there were no beds in its ICU.
"That's not scaremongering. That's fact."
The number of new COVID-19 cases fell marginally today, to 12,266.
The government has flagged hospital admissions and intensive care figures as the numbers to watch. However, despite the spike in the number of people in hospital, the Health Minister said the load still fell within a manageable range.
Instead, Amber-Jade Sanderson pointed at staff furlough figures as the critical number now affecting health services, with about 2,200 staff absent due to being sick or needing to isolate.
"The number that's challenging hospitals at the moment is not so much hospitalisations, but [furloughing of] staff. That's the number we're watching," Ms Sanderson said.
Staff shortage affecting ambulances
St John WA yesterday issued a public alert for the second time in a week over a delay in ambulances reaching people in need, due to "extremely high demand" and COVID-19 cutting through the workforce.
The ambulance service also issued a public alert last Monday, highlighting hospital ramping and an influx of COVID--related call-outs as contributing factors.
It was the first time St John had directly appealed to the public about delays to its services.
St John WA CEO Michelle Fyfe said the second alert was unlikely to be the last.
"I actually won't be doing a press conference every time we do this now," she said.
"I've got 108 paramedics across the organisation who are on COVID leave, and the majority of those are COVID-positive."
Ms Fyfe said St John's staffing levels were down about 10 per cent today and warned the upcoming flu season would compound the already dire situation.
"We are moving into what is traditionally the most busy time for ambulances," she said.
"I like to think there's light at the end of the tunnel but, right now, we're just going to deal with the situation that we have in front of us."
Premier 'reluctant' to renew restrictions
The total number of active COVID-19 cases in Western Australia has more than doubled, to 88,934, since restrictions eased three weeks ago.
While the spike in COVID-19 hospital admissions has not sparked new restrictions, Premier Mark McGowan has yet to rule out a potential reintroduction of public health measures.
"The state is doing far better than any of the modelling indicated, but what we will do is monitor," he said.
However, it is up for debate whether Western Australia is doing better than the modelling indicated.
While the number of occupied ICU beds is still falling far short of the peak in the Department of Health's modelling, other figures have been outstripped.
There have been 52 days so far where 200 or more hospital beds have been occupied by people with COVID-19, while the modelling only predicted a peak of 40 days.
Western Australia is still sitting far below the expected peak in daily case numbers, which Mr McGowan said could reach around 25,000 — more than double today's figures — according to the Chief Health Officer.
Despite that, the Premier did not want to identify a specific threshold for when restrictions would potentially be brought back.
"We haven't ruled out bringing in further restrictions, but we're very reluctant to do so," he said.
In the midst of appeals to the public from St John WA about the strain on ambulance services, and the calls from medical experts to bring back restrictions, Mr McGowan said COVID-19 in Western Australia was still "manageable".
