The Australian Government has announced 30 million masks will arrive in Australia in the next two weeks, as COVID-19 continued to spread across the country.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The announcement on Tuesday March 24, is in addition to 1.5 million masks which just arrived in the country and a further 24 million to arrive by the end of April; and comes as concerns grow about the lack of Personal Protective Equipment in regional and remote communities.
A nurse working at Mount Isa Hospital, who did not wish to be named, said she was concerned about not having sufficient PPE during the pandemic.
"If this reaches Mount Isa and remote communities, the effects will be detrimental," the nurse said.
"Queensland Health has enforced a number of measurements to reduce PPE being used, including only single gloving for theatre procedures."
READ ALSO:
However Queensland Health Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young said Queensland was in a better position for PPE then other states.
"Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) has been an ongoing matter for discussion at the federal level and Queensland is in a better position than many other states because we have our own significant stockpile," Dr Young said.
"To ensure we maintain supplies, we're asking clinicians to be mindful of how they use PPE, to avoid having unnecessary staff in the room when tests are taken and any other sensible measures that will reduce how quickly they need to use PPE.
So far 147,000 COVID-19 tests have been done so far in Australia, more than 0.5 per cent of the population.
Positive test result rate is lowest of any major country with 160,000 more test kits recently arriving in the country and another 37,000 tests on order.
We have removed our paywall from our stories about the coronavirus. This is a rapidly changing situation and we aim to make sure our readers are as informed as possible. If you would like to support our journalists you can subscribe here.