A groundbreaking initiative by four media partners to attract and develop more diverse voices into the industry has reached a milestone.New Zealand Media and Entertainment (NZME), Māori TV, Discovery / Newshub and thePacific…

Te Matau a Maui’s rookie celestial navigators have steered the waka to the Chatham Islands.Sibling navigators Te Kaha and Te Po Hawaikirangi dealt with constantly changing winds, cloudy nights and large swells on the waka’s first…

Police have released the names of the two men who drowned in the Manawatū River on January 2. They were Toetu Tonisitino, 39, and Aukusitino Ioane, 25, both of Palmerston North.Police were continuing to make inquiries on…

The question hung in the air like a bad odour, silencing the small group of fully vaccinated and boosted friends and family at my dinner table.

"Why not just get Omicron and get it over with? It's mild, right? And it can boost immunity?"

The fully vaccinated, boosted, well-educated friend who asked was sincere, echoing opinions heard on many social platforms.

READ MORE: How to treat COVID-19 at home

The idea of intentionally trying to catch Omicron is "all the rage," in the US said Dr Paul Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Centre at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, with an exasperated sigh.

"It's caught on like wildfire," agreed Dr Robert Murphy, executive director of the Havey Institute for Global Health at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

"And it's widespread, coming from all types of people, the vaccinated and boosted and the anti-vaxxers," he added, with a warning. "You'd be crazy to try to get infected with this. It's like playing with dynamite."

In case the thought had crossed your mind, here are five reasons why you should not purposely try to catch Omicron.

1. It's not a 'bad cold'

Significant fever, body aches, swollen lymph nodes, sore throats and heavy congestion are often reported even in milder cases of Omicron variant, Dr Murphy said, leaving people debilitated for days.

"People are talking about Omicron like it's a bad cold. It is not a bad cold," Dr Murphy said. "It's a life-threatening disease."

A recent study of over a million people published by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention found the risk of a severe outcome from COVID-19 was higher in vaccinated people who were 65 or older, people with weakened immune systems, or people who had at least one of the following health conditions: diabetes or chronic kidney, cardiac, pulmonary, neurologic or liver disease.

READ MORE: Food supply shortage hits KFC, supermarkets

However, even people without any underlying health conditions can get severely ill, Dr Murphy said. "I have a vaccinated, boosted patient right now — over 65 with no underlying risk factors — who is in the hospital and doing poorly."

It is true that if you catch the Omicron variant of COVID-19, as opposed to the Delta variant, "you're less likely to be hospitalised, less likely to go to the ICU (intensive care unit), less likely to be put on a mechanical ventilator and less likely to die – and that's true of all age groups," Dr Offit said.

"But that doesn't mean that it can't be a severe illness," Dr Offit added. "It's just less severe. But you don't have a zero per cent chance of dying. You should never want to get infected."

2. You could get long COVID

Losing your sense of smell (and therefore your sense of taste) has become a more common symptom in mild cases of COVID-19. Studies show some 80 per cent of people recover the ability within a month or so, but others still can't smell or taste after six months or more. An unfortunate few may never regain those two senses.

As unpleasant as that may be, it's only one of a number of health concerns that can last and last after a case of COVID-19. Called "long COVID," the phenomenon is characterised by such debilitating symptoms as shortness of breath, severe fatigue, fever, dizziness, brain fog, diarrhoea, heart palpitations, muscle and abdominal pain, mood changes and sleep difficulties.

READ MORE: Half of Europe could have COVID-19 in two months

Severe forms of long COVID can damage lungs, heart and kidneys, as well as your mental health.

"We're still trying to understand long COVID," Dr Offit said. "Because we don't understand it, I wouldn't be so quick to want to get an infection from a natural virus.

"A natural virus is always called the wild type virus, and there's a good reason for that: It's out of control," Dr Offit said. "Don't ever risk catching an infection from a natural virus."

3. You're spreading the disease to children

Most children have not been able to get fully vaccinated as yet.

That means any risky behaviour that might expose you to Omicron, such as not wearing a mask, not following social distancing guidelines, or gathering with crowds, especially indoors, will potentially expose others who may then carry the virus to their children.

Data from the American Academy of Paediatrics shows an upward trend of infections in children, which far exceeds "the peak of past waves of the pandemic."

"For the week ending January 6th, over 580,000 child COVID-19 cases were reported," according to numbers released Monday by the AAP.

READ MORE: What you need to know about registering a rapid antigen test result in NSW

"This number is a 78 per cent increase over the 325,000 added cases reported the week ending December 30th and an almost tripling of case counts from the two weeks prior," the AAP stated.

COVID-19 Infections in children have typically been mild so far in the pandemic, but the sheer magnitude of cases caused by the very contagious Omicron variant is sending children under age 18 to hospitals in record numbers, according to data from the CDC.

"I would say the best way to keep those children protected is to vaccinate them as they're eligible and surround them by siblings and parents who are vaccinated themselves," said CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky in a Friday news conference.

4. You'll stress the health care system

By deliberately catching any variant of SARS-CoV-2, which is the official name of the novel coronavirus, "you're going to keep the pandemic going and stress the health care system," Dr Murphy said.

5. Don't mess with Mother Nature

Was it ever a good idea to catch a disease on purpose? Those of a certain age will recall when parents used to host "chicken-pox parties" to expose their young children to an infected child. Because cases of adult chicken pox are more severe, the idea was to have your child catch it early to "get it over with."

"Oh, that was a bad idea too," Dr Offit said. He told a story about an educational film on vaccines he made years ago, and the cameraman revealed he had a sister who had taken her child to a chicken pox party. Tragically, the child died from the infection.

"Don't mess with Mother Nature," he said. "She's been trying to kill us ever since we crawled out of the ocean onto the land."

Australia's seven-day rolling average of COVID-19 cases is among the highest in the world – as a percentage of population – for the first time during the course of the pandemic.

Data collected by Johns Hopkins University, available on the Our World In Data site, shows how Australia's average ranks among several other developed, Western nations, including the US, UK, France, Italy, Germany, and Canada.

Australia's average is close to 3400 cases per million people – the second highest on the graph, behind only France.

LIVE UPDATES: More than 40 dead, nearly 75k new cases across Victoria and NSW

It's the first time since January 28, 2020, that Australia has ranked so highly – but the graph shows that the other countries on it have also recorded recent, massive spikes, underscoring the spread of the highly transmissible Omicron variant.

But it's not the full picture.

Measuring Australia's death and hospitalisation rates against the same countries offers a necessary balance, with our country recording the lowest percentage of both.

READ MORE: How Australia's fast food giants are facing food supply crunch

The data shows that as a seven-day rolling average, Australia has recorded fewer than two deaths per million people, and about 150 hospitalisations per million.

Given the US takes top spot in both metrics (about five deaths and just over 400 hospitalisations per million people), this can likely be attributed to Australia's high rate of vaccination.

Canada and Australia top the vaccination percentage list among the countries measured, with the US languishing at a shade over 60 per cent.

READ MORE: Frustration at 'crippling' Qld quarantine for international pilots

This morning, infectious disease expert Professor Peter Collignon told Today that the mental paradigm shift of trusting in the vaccine's protection was still yet to take place in Australia, with people's reflexive wariness after two years of the pandemic very much dominant.

READ MORE: Five reasons you should not deliberately catch Omicron to 'get it over with'

"A lot of us will get COVID over the next year or two," Professor Collignon said.

"We need to avoid it, if we can. But the consequences now for serious disease, which is the main thing that matters, are so much less than a year ago. We need to come to terms with that."

Until recently, quarantine requirements on pilots were so strict Sunshine Coast GP Kate Gazzard had to stay away from work any time her husband managed to fly internationally.

Now, amid Queensland's Omicron outbreak, the state government is weighing allowing healthcare workers like her to keep treating patients while asymptomatically infected with COVID-19.

But it's not budging on a requirement for international pilots to quarantine for two weeks.

READ MORE: Australians overseas frustrated by 'ridiculous' Queensland quarantine inconsistency

The rules mean pilots like Tim — who takes a PCR test at least once a week — must quarantine for twice as long as people confirmed to have COVID-19 and the people they live with.

Dr Gazzard said Tim, who couldn't be interviewed for this story, lost his job at the start of the pandemic and spent months in quarantine while flying, including a stretch from October to now with only a two-week break.

He and colleagues had even been forced into quarantine after day trips to Samoa and Nauru where they didn't leave the plane, she said.

"The mental health drain on these aviation pilots is crippling," she told 9News.com.au.

"It's really damaging to them and it's been — for an industry that was so decimated during the peak of COVID and is now only trying to get back on its feet to still be crippling these guys is really heartbreaking."

Dr Gazzard is the latest voice in a growing chorus pointing out major inconsistencies with Queensland's quarantine requirements.

READ MORE: 'It is just a virus': Chief Health Officer warns Queenslanders not to be scared of COVID-19 peak

More than a week after the government slashed the quarantine period for COVID-infected locals and their close contacts to seven days, all international arrivals, who must test negative before getting on the plane, are still forced to isolate for twice as long.

It's an approach UK public health physician Professor Iain Buchan described to 9News.com.au as "contradiction in terms" that failed to take the "bigger picture" into account.

The government insists it is taking a "cautious approach" and plans to scrap all international quarantine when 90 per cent of the state's over-16s are fully vaccinated.

That milestone is close; the figure was 87.9 per cent on Tuesday. But with a slow start to vaccinations in 2022, the figure is just a little more than a percentage point higher than at the end of last year.

Dr Gazzard said the wait was too much for pilots who had already spent so much time in quarantine and the discrepancy made a "complete mockery of every sacrifice we've made over the past two years".

"The policy is absolutely ludicrous," she said.

READ MORE: The best way to treat COVID-19 at home

"These pilots have suffered enough over the past two years. They don't deserve to continue suffering because of government hypocrisy and incompetence."

Even with 10-20,000 confirmed cases a day within the state and tens of thousands more in other states without quarantine restrictions, Queensland Health maintains that "risks associated with overseas travellers and international air crew have not changed".

"While both interstate and overseas hotspots are a concern, the risk profile for overseas hotspots is greater due to several factors, including quality of vaccinations, different variants circulating overseas, and uncertainty in contact tracing processes used in other countries," a spokesperson told 9News.com.au in a statement. 

"All of these factors are taken into consideration to help minimise the spread of current or new variants in our state, and across Australia broadly."

It's an argument Dr Gazzard, who worked in sports medicine before the pandemic brought most sport to a halt in 2020, took issue with.

READ MORE: Victoria records 37,994 new cases of COVID-19

"These pilots, they're not international travellers," she said, adding that the rule didn't make sense for everyday international arrivals either.

"They're triple vaccinated with Australian Pfizer vaccines and they're quarantining everywhere they go."

The 43-year-old said she'd written to Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk appealing for "common sense" but hadn't heard anything back.

"I've written so many times saying 'as a doctor, I can't see the sense in this,'" she said.

"How can you guys have a COVID positive patient quarantine for seven days and a three times negative PCR tested pilot quarantine for 14 days."

READ MORE: 180 million-year-old 'sea dragon' fossil unearthed

While Queensland Health is maintaining its stance on international quarantine, it is considering further relaxing isolation requirements for health workers, to the point where they can go back to work after testing positive to COVID-19, so long as they're asymptomatic.

Queenslanders in "critically essential" industries such as health, retail and essential retail  can already return to work despite being a close contact.

"It's possible that people who are asymptomatic and positive might be asked for example, to work in a COVID ward," Queensland Chief Health Officer John Gerrard said on Friday.

"… It's certainly something that has been discussed. 

"It isn't being done at the moment. But that's something that's the sort of thing we are making plans for, contingency plans for."

With 2138 Queensland Health staff infected and 2715 listed as close contacts on Tuesday, Dr Gerrard said there were no infected healthcare staff back on the job but "there may be some close contacts being monitored and working in the wards".

A $1 million reward has been announced over the suspicious death of a young musician who was found dead inside a burnt-out bungalow outside his Melbourne home.

Connor Tolson, aged 21 at the time, had been out celebrating a friend's 21st birthday in Brighton on the evening of Friday, September 18 in 2015, hours before he was strangled in his backyard bungalow, which then went up in flames.

Police said he left the party and walked to a train station with three other guests about 11.30pm.

READ MORE: Push to find cyclist after Melbourne arson attack

A rideshare driver then picked him up near North Brighton Railway Station about 12.13am on Saturday, dropping him off near his home in Malvern East.

Mr Tolson's sister hear noises that sounded like movement in the backyard about 3.30am, but when she looked out her window, she did not see anything.

Local residents smelt smoke between 4.30am and 4.45am and went to investigate the source of the smell, with a number of calls made to triple-zero to report the fire.

His sister awoke just before 5am to find the bungalow on fire, waking her mother, who kicked open the front door, but it was already filled with smoke and flames.

READ MORE: Rising hospitalisations, staff shortages leading to crunch point

Firefighters extinguished the blaze and inspected the bungalow, finding Mr Tolson's body inside.

The fire was thought to be non-suspicious, but a coronial inquest into his death found his injuries were no accident and his death occurred before the fire, which was deliberately lit.

The 21-year-old suffered bruising to his neck but had not inhaled any of the toxic chemicals from the blaze.

Detective Senior Sergeant Mark Kennedy, from the Arson and Explosives Squad, said Mr Tolson's family deserved answers, hoping the reward would encourage someone with information about the fire and his death to come forward.

"Connor was a talented young musician whose young life was tragically cut short that night," he said.

"There is the possibility that the person or persons responsible for his death may have spoken to someone about Connor and today's reward announcement may lead to them finally coming forward with information.

"People's circumstances can change over the years and someone who may not have wanted to provide information to police previously may now feel ready to do so.

"It doesn't matter how insignificant you think the piece of information is, it could be exactly what our investigators need to make a breakthrough in this case."

Any information given will be treated as confidential and may be given at any time to Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.