Australians urged to work from home as winter Omicron wave swamps hospitals

FILE PHOTO: A lone woman, wearing a protective face mask, walks across a city centre bridge as the state of Victoria looks to curb the spread of a COVID-19 outbreak in Melbourne, Australia, July 16, 2021. REUTERS/Sandra Sanders

SYDNEY (Reuters) -Australians admitted to hospitals from COVID-19 neared record levels on Wednesday as authorities urged businesses to let staff work from home and recommended people wear masks indoors and get booster shots urgently amid a major coronavirus outbreak.

Australia is in the grip of a third Omicron wave driven by the highly transmissible new subvariants, BA.4 and BA.5, with more than 300,000 cases recorded over the past seven days. Authorities say the actual numbers could be double that total, and Wednesday's 53,850 new cases was the highest daily tally in two months.