Since the beginning of the pandemic, more than 36,000 people have caught COVID-19 in Australia, including more than 200 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
While vaccinations continue, it’s important to keep doing simple behaviours that can help protect people from getting sick and spreading the virus:
- staying two big steps apart from others in the community,
- keeping your hands clean by washing them regularly for about 20 seconds,
- staying home when you’re feeling sick, and
- getting tested for the virus if you have any symptoms.
Other ways to keep yourself safe include regularly cleaning and wiping down items and surfaces that you touch frequently.This includes surfaces that other people are touching too. This could be your phone, door handles or tap handles.
New COVID-19 variants can spread more easily among people in our communities. It can sometimes spread between two people walking past each other at the shops or in the park.
If you have any symptoms of COVID-19, like:
- a headache
- a sore throat
- a runny nose
- a fever
- a persistant cough
or if you have been in a risk location identified by your state or territory, go get tested straight away and stay at home until you get your results. At the moment these locations are being updated every day, so please check the news on television, radio and online for the latest information in your area, or for places you have been recently.
Remember: the best way to protect yourself and your community from COVID-19 is to get vaccinated. The COVID-19 vaccines are very effective at preventing you from getting seriously sick or needing to go to a hospital if you were to catch the virus. The COVID-19 vaccines are now available for all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 12 years and over. Make an appointment to speak to your healthcare worker about your vaccination or visit health.gov.au.