Premier Peter Gutwein has urged Tasmanians to "just keep your head" over the ongoing spread of the Omicron variant as he faces growing criticism from political opponents and some in the business community.
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The state's reopening plan - designed for December 15 when borders opened to high risk areas - has seen numerous adaptations with national changes to close contact definitions, reduced testing requirements and the rapid implementation of indoor mask mandates.
It has prompted concern from Labor and the Greens over waits for COVID testing results and uncertainty for business, including a Hobart restaurant which shut its doors temporarily, with others considering a similar move.
Mr Gutwein said the reopening plan was designed for the Delta strain, but the Omicron variant had since become dominant. In the weeks leading up to the border reopening, he reaffirmed a "no turning back" approach despite uncertainty over the effects of Omicron.
The Premier said Omicron was preferable to Delta, however.
"At the moment, the impact on our health system is very very low, in fact only two people in hospital, neither of them as a result of COVID-related matters," he said.
"What I'd say to Tasmanians is just keep your head. Others around us will lose their head at this particular time.
"Our plan that we laid out was set for Delta, which was a much more severe disease. What we have now to deal with is a highly transmissible but less severe disease in the main.
"If that's the type of COVID that you're going to get, then it's probably the right time for COVID as we work our way through this."
While hospitalisations were currently minimal, deputy Public Health director Scott McKeown said data from other states would continuously be monitored.
"We do expect that there will be people in hospital as a result of COVID, but with most of the community being vaccinated and this being a milder variant, individuals who have COVID are much less likely to have severe outcomes compared to Delta, with Omicron circulating," he said.
Public Health believes wait times for PCR test results are back under 24 hours after a surge in the past week pushed some waits to 30 hours.
An anxious time as Omicron continues to spread
A further 466 COVID-19 cases were recorded in Tasmania in the 24 hours to Monday morning, bringing the total number of active cases to 1691.
But Tasmanian Greens health spokesperson Rosalie Woodruff said these figures were underestimating the scale of the spread of Omicron.
"We've got 26 per cent of all people presenting for testing coming back positive, that shows that we're not testing enough people. Simply it shows that there is a rate of community transmission in Tasmania, we've really got no idea how many people are being infected," she said.
"PCR testing is unavailable, take home kits are also unavailable, the government is changing the goal posts all the time on what a ... close contact is, and on who is allowed and indeed required to get tested."
The Greens called for the state's borders to be closed again, but Labor's position remained that the change in the way Tasmania handled COVID "was needed".
Labor workplace relations spokesperson Sarah Lovell said Tasmanians were promised 5000 tests a day, but the government was falling short of this.
"What businesses need, and what they're saying they need, is the ability to test their staff quickly when they get notification of an exposure," she said.
"People are having to wait several days for a test. For a small business in Tasmania that's just not feasible, we can't make that work, so we need rapid antigen tests to be available free of charge."
THA calls for calm
The Tasmanian Hospitality Association, which engages closely with government on policy decisions, believes current issues with testing availability will ease in the coming weeks.
THA chief executive officer Steve Old said this would provide businesses with the certainty to keep operating.
"We were bracing for some teething issues when the borders re-opened, especially in regards to staffing levels, but it is still disappointing to hear that some businesses are temporarily closing for differing reasons and again," he said.
"I expect the issues around people being unable to gain access to rapid antigen testing kits and PCR testing to subside moving forward and hopefully this will ease the staffing strain on those venues.
"We continue to talk to Government about concerns within the industry, one of which is access to RAT kits and we are eager to try and get them to hospitality venues and staff as soon as possible.
"We are also continuing to gather data from venues who have had mass cancellations and passing this on to Government in an effort to obtain any financial assistance to those establishments."
State health commander Kathrine Morgan-Wicks said the state had already secured 500,000 rapid antigen test kits, with a further two million ordered and available next month.
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