There are now more Australians in hospital with COVID-19 than ever before, according to Our World in Data.The previous record of Covid hospitalisations in Australia, which sat at 5390 at the end of January, has now been surpassed, with 5429 Australians now in hospital with the virus. New modelling in Queensland, revealed COVID-19 hospitalisations in the state are yet to peak.Despite record numbers in July, the state’s hospitalisations are predicted to reach their highest levels in late August at around 1,660 cases, more than 600 above the current figure.There are currently 1,123 people in the state being hospitalised with Covid, including 31 in ICU. A total of 91 people have also died in Victoria, NSW and Queensland in the past 24 hours, with Australia’s death toll surpassing 11,000 over the weekend. Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the health department is busy planning for the upcoming wave of hospitalisations.“Hard work is underway to ensure our health system is ready for what’s ahead,” she posted to Twitter on Tuesday. “Preparations include bringing extra beds online and scaling up our QAS co-ordination hub,” she said, adding that more health staff were being sent to the frontline.Ms Palaszczuk, however, said the concerning new modelling did not suggest that more Queenslanders would be admitted to ICU. “Thankfully, it does not predict an increase in patients in intensive care,” Ms Palaszczuk said.Infectious diseases expert Dr Paul Griffin said while our death rate at the moment is “alarming,” the restrictions that have been in place over the past two years have worked in reducing the severity of our winter wave. “You have to remember that cumulatively over the course of the pandemic we’ve had great measures to keep the virus at bay until we had a lot of people vaccinated, and that’s put it in a really good position,” he said. Dr Griffin, along with other experts, is calling for an introduction of restrictions to slow down the number of people ending up in hospital.“We just need to get all of those simple things we’ve been talking about for so long to happen at a much higher rate,” he said.Overnight, Victoria recorded 40 Covid deaths, NSW recorded 30 and Queensland recorded 21. A total of 869 people in Victoria and 2,344 people in NSW are being hospitalised with the virus.
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