Mary-Anne Thomas is in only in her second week and already is facing serious challenges.“Right now we are seeing a health system that is under unprecedented pressure,” Ms Thomas told 3AW radio station on Thursday. “Its winter, we’ve got Covid, we’ve got flu hitting us harder than we have in years.”There are more than 50,000 active Covid cases, 592 people receiving care in hospital and 24 in intensive care across Victoria. Premier Daniel Andrews signed off this week on a three-month extension of the pandemic declaration in consultation with the Health Minister. “My advice was that we needed to extend the declaration in order to still be able to ask Victorians to stay at home if they are Covid positive,” she said.“We’ve got to do all that we can to reduce the spread of the virus, that’s what healthcare workers are telling us.”She said she had not ruled out the reintroduction of mask mandates or work-from-home advices.“The pandemic declaration allows me to make that decision, but I’ve not yet made it,” she said.Ms Thomas said she spoke with the public health team regularly and was yet to receive advice to reinstate those rules. “The public health team are looking at modelling and they’re consulting with their colleagues and various ideas are floated but no decisions have been taken,” she said.However, Ms Thomas is confident that Victorians are well-practised now to live with Covid without requiring government mandates. “Victorians know what to do, we’ve been living with the Covid virus for 2½ years,” she said. “We know that in order to protect ourself and vulnerable family members that it’s important to keep up to date with our vaccines, to wear masks in crowded settings and on public transport.”Ms Thomas said she would welcome a decision to recommend a fourth dose of the Covid vaccine and believes there is enough supply to support that program. The opposition responded on Thursday by renewing calls for the government to scrap pandemic laws entirely, arguing they placed a spectre of uncertainty over businesses and consumers.Opposition Leader Matthew Guy said the government’s handling of Covid was “bordering on chaotic”.“As premier, I’d have pandemic laws withdrawn and rewritten,” he said.The Liberals’ deputy leader, David Southwick, claimed the government’s Covid emergency powers were holding back the state’s pandemic recovery.“Business needs certainty, shoppers need certainty, workers need certainty, communities need certainty. None of this can happen under endless emergency declarations,” Mr Southwick said.“Instead of Labor’s big, devastating lockdown laws, the Liberals and Nationals will manage Covid in a common sense way that gives local communities confidence.”
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