A prominent WA infectious diseases expert said the premise of a third booster shot is to stop hospitalisations and fatalities from COVID-19.

Dr Clay Golledge said he was blindsided by the WA Premier Mark McGowan’s announcement on Thursday night, especially as cases and hospitalisations had decreased interstate.

“We’ve been sold a pup yet again and everyone in WA has a right to feel cheated by this. I just don’t know what the Premier is thinking and what our way out of it is going to be,” he told Liam Bartlett on 6PR Mornings.

“The evidence is very clear that the third dose does protect you very well against severe disease, what it doesn’t do and wasn’t really designed to do, is protect you against acquisition of infectious virus like Omicron.

“So we are all – and I’m going to say this again – we are all going to be exposed to Omicron and other variants over the next 6 to 12 months, probably on multiple times, and the vast majority of us will get infected, no matter what we do with our borders.

“This is why I’ve strongly felt a February 5 opening was reasonably good timing, and we could take a middle ground approach Liam … to try and ease our way into it, but our Premier is so binary, so all or none, that he’s now taken this hardline approach.”

Tap PLAY below to Dr Golledge’s thoughts on the clinical aspects to opening now.