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The Canberra Times
The Canberra Times
National
Steve Evans

Four die with COVID in the ACT, but overall numbers dropping

In-depth COVID

Four people have died with COVID-19 in the ACT, according to the health authority.

"ACT Health has been notified of four deaths - a man in his 70s, a woman in her 80s, and two men in their 90s, with COVID-19," a statement said.

"ACT Health extends its sincere condolences to their family and friends at this difficult time."

The total number of deaths in the ACT during the pandemic has now risen to 96.

But the number of active cases continues to fall.

In the 24 hours to 8pm on Monday, there were 4625 known active cases compared with 4968 the day before. Last week, active cases stayed stubbornly above 5000.

There were 754 new cases in the 24 hours to Monday at 8pm. The seven-day rolling average also dipped again, from 850 to 822.

Of the 754 new cases, 369 were detected by PCR test and 385 with the rapid test.

On Monday, there were 158 patients with COVID-19 in hospital, a slight fall from the 165 on the previous day.

Of the 158 in hospital on Monday, three were in intensive care, with one on a ventilator.

The age breakdown of the latest cases:

  • 0-4 years old: 48
  • 5-11: 64
  • 12-17: 62
  • 18-24: 79
  • 25-39: 182
  • 40-49: 112
  • 50-64: 117
  • 65+: 90
  • Total: 754

Two schools switch to remote learning

Two ACT public schools have sent some cohorts into a temporary period of remote learning.

Year 5 and 6 at Ainslie School and years 3, 4, 5 and 6 at Latham Primary School will be learning from home until August 4.

It is the first time in Term 3 that schools have used the emergency measure. It is triggered when a school has too many staff absent to be able to operate safely.

Friday, August 5 will be a pupil free day across all ACT public and Catholic systemic schools to be used as a staff planning day.

Other COVID news

For the country as a whole, Australia's COVID-19 death rate, hospital visits and number of cases were the second highest in the world per million people last week, an expert has said.

Epidemiologist Professor Mike Toole said Australia ranked just behind Brunei for cases per million, just behind New Zealand for deaths, and just behind France for the number of hospital visits.

Australia recorded 695 deaths in the last seven days and 301,204 COVID-19 cases, according to COVIDlive.

In Britain, dogs are being trained to detect COVID on humans.

An organisation called Medical Detection Dogs is in the final stages of testing whether its dogs can sniff out the disease.

"This is where we ask the dogs to discriminate COVID-19 positive from COVID-19 negative participants, through passive screening, under strict blind conditions meaning that even the dogs' trainers don't know who has the virus," the organisation said.

"It is the first time that dogs have been used to passively screen for disease and will enable us to prove that a search directly on people is an effective method; and if successful could be used for the rapid detection of other diseases in the future."

Our coverage of the health and safety aspects of this outbreak of COVID-19 in the ACT is free for anyone to access. However, we depend on subscription revenue to support our journalism. If you are able, please subscribe here. If you are already a subscriber, thank you for your support. You can also sign up for our newsletters for regular updates.

CEO of Capital Pathology Jason Gluch. Picture: Dion Georgopoulos
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