Australia will reinstate support payments for casual workers who have to quarantine due to COVID-19, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Saturday, as a fresh wave of Omicron-driven infections sweeps the country.
Australia is battling a major virus outbreak driven by the highly transmissible new Omicron subvariants, BA.4 and BA.5, with authorities warning it could lead to more people ending up in hospitals and further straining the health system.
Albanese said the leave payments, that ended on June 30 and entitled workers to get up to AUD$750 for each seven-day quarantine period, will be restored and extended until Sept. 30. As of the end of last year, the government had spent almost AUD$13 billion on 2.4 million employees in pandemic payments, according to official data, while total federal support since the pandemic began is estimated to be over AUD$300 billion.
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