The Latest Breaking News on Should We Be Masking Up? What To Know About Australia’s New Covid Wave

The number of Scots estimated to have Covid-19 has fallen, figures from ONS show

Cases have dropped significantly, but it will take weeks to ease current pressures facing hospitals

Levels have dropped by nearly a third since the start of the month.

Risk of death in Covid patients was up to 81-fold higher in the acute phase and five-fold higher in the post-acute phase.

Over the past month or two, many northern hemisphere countries including the US and the UK have seen a large wave of respiratory viral infections. These include RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), flu and COVID in all ages, as well as bacterial infections such as strep A in children.

Future COVID-19 variants and outbreaks would be best managed by ongoing vaccination and the quicker scaling up of restrictions, according to new research published in the Lancet Regional Health — Western Pacific journal.

There were 806 new reported cases of COVID in the ACT.

Here's a quick wrap of the COVID-19 news and case numbers from each Australian jurisdiction from the past week.

The latest Australian COVID-19 data on cases, hospitalisations and deaths shows the number of cases are still decreasing.

The findings of the study show that the chances of death remained five times higher up to 18 months later

Study involving 150,000 participants shows the likelihood of Covid-19 patients dying was up to 81 times higher in the first three weeks