Australia news LIVE: NSW records 239 new local COVID-19 cases as harsher restrictions implemented for eight Sydney LGAs

We’re sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. We’re working to restore it. Please try again later.

Advertisement

This was published 2 years ago

Australia news LIVE: NSW records 239 new local COVID-19 cases as harsher restrictions implemented for eight Sydney LGAs

Key posts

Pinned post from

Top medical expert panel to hold emergency meeting tonight: Health Minister

By Rachel Clun

Australia’s group of top medical experts are holding an emergency meeting tonight to work out how other states and territories can provide additional support to NSW during its growing outbreak.

The state has now recorded more than 2800 locally acquired cases, with 182 people in hospital including 54 patients with COVID-19 in intensive care.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said earlier the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee – chaired by Chief Medical Officer Professor Paul Kelly and involving every state and territory top health official – will look at ways further support can be given to NSW.

“They’re doing a Herculean job and they’re doing it with the support of the nation,” he said. “As part of that, the support for tracing and the capacity of other states and territories in the Commonwealth to assist is on the table.”

Mr Hunt said the Delta variant had been “a game-changer” but noted case numbers were still much lower than what many other countries have faced.

The federal government will also be expanding communication into multicultural communities, the health minister said, with more advertisements on a variety of platforms and additional translations of COVID-19 advice.

Latest posts

A summary of the day’s news

That’s all for today. Thanks for reading. Here are the day’s headlines at a glance:

  • NSW recorded 239 new cases of coronavirus, the state’s highest daily number. Additional restrictions are in place for eight areas of Greater Sydney, including mandatory masks outdoors – a measure experts have questioned. Premier Gladys Berejiklian says the daily numbers are likely to get worse before they get better.
  • Defence Force troops will join NSW Police to assist with enforcing Sydney’s lockdown, a move critics described as “a catastrophically bad idea”.
  • A new report suggests Australia will need to vaccinate 80 per cent of the entire population to fully lift restrictions. The top group of medical experts were holding an emergency meeting tonight to work out how other states and territories can provide additional support to NSW.
  • Residents of an apartment block in Melbourne’s south-west have been tested for COVID-19 after a mystery case visited their building while potentially infectious. Victoria’s six new cases are linked to existing outbreaks and were in isolation.
  • New research has found that strict lockdowns led to the highest levels of depression and anxiety ever seen.

We’ll be back again tomorrow morning. Goodnight.

Map shows how COVID-19 spread and concentrated in Sydney’s west

By Jenny Noyes

Since the Sydney COVID-19 outbreak began in Bondi on June 16, cases with the virus spread to the city’s western suburbs and quickly multiplied in those communities – while case numbers have remained low in the east.

In Fairfield, case numbers are nearing 900, while the next-worst-affected LGA is Canterbury-Bankstown, where numbers are approaching 500. Cumberland and Liverpool have more than 200 cases, and Blacktown has more than 100.

In the CBD and east, LGAs have had less than 100 cases since the outbreak began, despite it starting in those areas.

The map below shows where the number of cases in this current outbreak are most concentrated. You can click through to see how the epicentre of the outbreak has shifted since June 16.

Mystery Victorian case linked to existing outbreaks, source still unknown

By Cassandra Morgan

Victorian health officials have confirmed that a positive COVID case who worked at a testing clinic in Melbourne’s north-west is linked to the state’s current outbreaks.

The positive case is a man who worked as a traffic controller for two days while infectious at the Moonee Valley Racecourse testing clinic.

The Chief Health Officer’s update on Thursday evening confirmed that genomic testing had linked the man’s infection to the state’s current coronavirus outbreaks.

A testing site at Mooney Valley Racecourse closed after a traffic controller tested positive.

A testing site at Mooney Valley Racecourse closed after a traffic controller tested positive.Credit: Nine News

However, the update said “further work is under way to determine how the positive case acquired the virus”.

Public health officials and epidemiologists had expressed their concern about the case on Wednesday, saying even the best-case scenario of the man having caught the virus working at a testing station posed significant challenges.

As well as announcing the man’s link to the current outbreaks on Thursday evening, the update said there was a new COVID case in Victoria’s Bass Coast Shire.

The case has been in quarantine throughout their infectious period, the update said, and will be reported in tomorrow’s official case numbers.

Advertisement

Australia likely to have 80 per cent vaccinated by March next year

By Rachel Clun

Australia can ease restrictions and end lockdowns when 80 per cent of the entire population has been vaccinated, modelling shows, a target that could be reached by the end of the year if children under the age of 12 are included in the rollout.

Without vaccinating young children, the country could achieve the level of coverage that would minimise deaths and keep pressure off hospital systems even with more coronavirus in the community by March next year, the Grattan Institute’s Race to 80 report shows.

Australia will need to vaccinate 80 per cent of the entire population to lift restrictions, a new report says.

Australia will need to vaccinate 80 per cent of the entire population to lift restrictions, a new report says.Credit: Dean Sewell

The report also suggests expanding mandatory vaccines to cover corrective service workers and teachers from November and prepare people for requiring mandatory proof of vaccination in certain high-risk settings from early next year.

National cabinet will for the first time on Friday look at the Doherty Institute’s modelling on the vaccination rates required to move the country out of lockdowns and tough restrictions. Combined with economic advice from Treasury, the modelling will be used to create a detailed roadmap out of the pandemic.

Keep reading here.

Depression, anxiety hit record highs in lockdowns, research finds

By Wendy Tuohy

Before COVID-19 arrived in Australia, about 5 per cent of Australians typically reported moderate to severe symptoms of depression in the previous two weeks.

By August last year, one in five people had had at least occasional thoughts in the previous two weeks “that they would be better off dead”.

Monash University research has found strict lockdowns led to the highest levels of depression and anxiety on record.

Zoe Vafiadis found herself very anxious during harsh lockdown restrictions.

Zoe Vafiadis found herself very anxious during harsh lockdown restrictions.Credit: Chris Hopkins

At the height of Victoria’s harsh restrictions in 2020, 44 per cent of people in the state reported moderate to severe symptoms of depression and 34 per cent reported moderate to severe anxiety.

Clinical psychologist Professor Jane Fisher said the study’s findings were concerning and showed “Australia needs a pathway to psychological recovery that complements the national cabinet’s current economic and pandemic management plans”.

Melbourne woman Zoe Vafiadis said worry about her autistic son’s welfare during lockdown caused the onset of anxiety. She had not previously experienced such symptoms.

“I tend to find myself thinking in circles ... there is really no way to plan while things are up in the air. I’ve never really laid awake at night worrying about things before,” Ms Vafiadis said.

Read more here.

‘Not a lot of value’: Experts question outdoor masks in Sydney’s west

By Mary Ward

Western Sydney residents will be required to wear masks outdoors in a change to lockdown settings that epidemiologists say will likely have little impact on transmission.

From midnight, anyone living in the Blacktown, Campbelltown, Canterbury-Bankstown, Cumberland, Fairfield, Georges River, Liverpool or Parramatta local government areas will need to wear a mask at all times when outside their home.

A man wearing a mask in Fairfield earlier this month. The local government area is one of eight where masks will be mandatory outside from tomorrow.

A man wearing a mask in Fairfield earlier this month. The local government area is one of eight where masks will be mandatory outside from tomorrow.Credit: Kate Geraghty

Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the new rules were designed to ensure people were not caught out without a mask. The public health order in operation across Greater Sydney already required people to carry a mask when leaving home.

Professor Greg Dore, infectious diseases physician at St Vincent’s Hospital and epidemiologist at the Kirby Institute, said he did not support the measure given the lack of evidence of benefit and minor role outdoor transmission had played in Sydney’s outbreak.

ANU infectious diseases physician Professor Peter Collignon said the chance of catching COVID-19 from someone outside while social distancing was “extremely minimal”.

There have been only a handful of confirmed instances of transmission of the Delta variant outside in recent months, all while seated for an extended period.

Read more here.

Advertisement

Podcast: Job losses and stagnant wage growth as cost of living rises

By Nathanael Cooper

Australia’s major banks are projecting up to 300,000 Sydney jobs will be lost as a result of the protracted lockdown which will run until at least the end of August.

It comes as prices for staples such as fruit, vegetables and petrol rise at double the rate of wages growth.

The Commonwealth Bank has predicted as many as one in 10 people in greater Sydney will become unemployed while ANZ now expects earlier forecasts of tens of thousands of job losses to be exceeded.

Annual inflation has risen to 3.8 per cent according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Today on Please Explain, economics correspondent Jennifer Duke joins Nathanael Cooper to discuss what this grim outlook means for our lives.

New venue alerts for Sydney exposure sites

By Jenny Noyes

The latest NSW Health list of venues of concern includes close contact (tier 1) exposure sites in Sydney’s inner west and trains between Sydney and the Central Coast, while an apartment building is a casual exposure site for five days in a row.

The Health Space Clinic in Pyrmont, Chambers Cellers in Forest Lodge and Booth Street Bakery have each had windows of close contact exposure to a person infectious with COVID-19. Trains from Strathfield to Tuggerah and Gosford to Central were also tier one exposure sites on July 23.

Among the list of casual exposure sites is the Goldsbrough Apartments in Pyrmont, with all residents and any visitors who were there from Friday July 23 to Tuesday July 27 told to immediately get a test and isolate until a negative result is received.

There are also new casual exposure sites in Belmore and Chester Hill in Sydney’s west, along with several Sydney train services.

For the full list of new exposure sites and times, check the tweet below. The entire list is available here.

Top medical expert panel to hold emergency meeting tonight: Health Minister

By Rachel Clun

Australia’s group of top medical experts are holding an emergency meeting tonight to work out how other states and territories can provide additional support to NSW during its growing outbreak.

The state has now recorded more than 2800 locally acquired cases, with 182 people in hospital including 54 patients with COVID-19 in intensive care.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said earlier the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee – chaired by Chief Medical Officer Professor Paul Kelly and involving every state and territory top health official – will look at ways further support can be given to NSW.

“They’re doing a Herculean job and they’re doing it with the support of the nation,” he said. “As part of that, the support for tracing and the capacity of other states and territories in the Commonwealth to assist is on the table.”

Mr Hunt said the Delta variant had been “a game-changer” but noted case numbers were still much lower than what many other countries have faced.

The federal government will also be expanding communication into multicultural communities, the health minister said, with more advertisements on a variety of platforms and additional translations of COVID-19 advice.

Advertisement

NSW Police hunt protesters suspected of throwing pot plants at officers

By Fergus Hunter

Police have released images of two men suspected of throwing pot plants at mounted officers and their horses during the anti-lockdown protest in Sydney’s CBD.

NSW Police have launched an investigation into the event held last Saturday that saw thousands of participants march through the city in defiance of COVID-19 public health orders.

Police are seeking to identify four men following last Saturday’s anti-lockdown rally.

Police are seeking to identify four men following last Saturday’s anti-lockdown rally.Credit: Composite

As part of efforts to identify people to be fined and charged for their participation, investigators are calling for information on a handful of men believed to be involved in throwing the projectiles.

Police said officers attached to the force’s mounted unit came to the assistance of an officer between 1-2pm on George Street near Town Hall.

“The officers and horses were then struck by projectiles, including pot plants,” police said.

Read more here.

Most Viewed in National

Loading