Sydney records 105 new cases, first rugby case among Victoria’s positive tests
Gladys Berejiklian has confirmed 105 new cases in NSW, while Covid-19 has spread to another Victorian regional city.
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An elderly woman has died and New South Wales has recorded 105 new locally acquired cases of Covid-19, with at least 27 of those infectious in the community.
A woman in her 90s from southeast Sydney died on Saturday with NSW Health “extending its sincere sympathies to her family”.
It come as 17 more Victorians tested postive for Covid-19, including a man from Mildura, 500 kilometres from Melbourne, who attended the Carlton-Geelong game at the MCG.
Of the locally acquired cases in NSW, 66 were linked to a known case or cluster – 55 are household contacts and 11 are close contacts – while the source of infection for a whopping 39 cases remains under investigation.
“We know this Delta strain is so difficult to deal with, it is like nothing we have dealt with before in NSW,” NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said.
“And I just want to deeply thank all sections of the community who are working hard together with us to make sure we beat this thing and we’re throwing everything at it.”
The numbers come as greater Sydney and NSW experiences the toughest restrictions of the entire pandemic.
“We know these are difficult times but we also know that when we come together we can achieve what we need to achieve,” Ms Berejiklian said.
“We are throwing everything at this. We want to come out of this lockdown as soon as possible. We want to make sure that we allow families and businesses in particular to bounce back as soon as we can and that is why we are throwing everything at it in the next two weeks.”
There are currently 76 Covid cases in hospital with 18 people in intensive care, seven of whom require ventilation.
“Can I stress this, we are seeing cases from across metropolitan Sydney,” NSW chief health officer Dr Chant said.
“So every time you leave your house it is critical that you assume you are coming into contact with Covid.
“So can I ask everybody to reflect on their movements in the next fortnight and make sure that you do not come in contact with anyone outside your household group.
“Obviously you need to do those essential things like shopping.”
Victrorian Premier Daniel Andrews said there were now more than 210 exposure sites — up from 160 on Saturday.
The Premier said it was still too early to reveal any changes to the state-wide lockdown.
“I can’t make announcements of what will be relevant and what will be done safely and what will be possible from midnight on Tuesday,” he said.
“The next 24 and 48 hours are critical in terms of that. As soon as we can provide people with greater clarity … then, of course, we will.
But it is too early — frustratingly, I know — for us to make those announcements today.”
The Premier defended the move to lock the entire state down, saying: “If we’d been open, we wouldn’t be talking about 40, 50, 60 cases — we’d be talking about an altogether bigger number and an altogether longer lockdown.”
The Australian reports that one of the new cases attended Tuesday night’s rugby match between the Wallabies and France at AAMI Park — representing the first known transmission at the game.
CUSTOMERS ‘EXPOSED FOR 10 DAYS’
A cafe in Sydney’s southwest has been identified as a key venue of concern after staff and customers were potentially exposed to Covid-19 for 10 straight days.
It is among a string of cafes, shopping centres, medical centres and bus routes added to the expanding list of sites visited by people carrying the virus in the city.
Most of the new venues of concern are located in the southwest, which has become the epicentre of the virus’ spread through the community, but also stretch into the west, inner west and lower Blue Mountains.
Belmore’s The Raw Coffee Bar has been deemed a close contact site after a staff member worked there for 10 days straight between July 7 to 16.
Belmore Medical Centre, located on the same street, has also been identified as a key area of concern.
REMOVALISTS TEST POSITIVE
Three removalists who tested positive for Covid-19 still travelled from Sydney to regional New South Wales, according to police.
The trio allegedly knew they had coronavirus before they went from West Hoxton in Sydney’s southwest and travelled to Molong.
Police said they first travelled from West Hoxton to Figtree, then stopped in regional areas, including South Bowenfels and Orange, on their way to Molong.
“This thoughtless act has now placed our regional communities in NSW at the greatest risk so far with this pandemic,” Police and Emergency Services Minister David Elliott said on Saturday.
“We know that the Delta variant is highly transmissible and it is unfathomable to think that, with all the public information and health warnings, people could so blatantly ignore the health orders.”
Police spoke to four men – aged 21, 49 and two aged 27 – after they were notified on Friday afternoon at Molong.
The three younger men were slapped with court attendance notices for not complying with coronavirus directions and it is alleged they travelled to regional NSW after they tested positive to Covid-19, police said.
It comes as NSW recorded one death and 111 new local cases on Saturday, with lockdown measures also tightened.
Removalists from NSW also sparked an outbreak in Melbourne, which prompted a statewide lockdown.
The trio who were issued attendance notices are not the same as the three removalists who sparked an outbreak in Victoria.
In total, police have issued 162 penalty infringement notices and charged 18 people for breaches of the Public Health Act in the past 24 hours.
‘EXTRA ACTION’: NSW’S HUGE COVID SPIKE
Strict new lockdown measures including a temporary ban on construction and retail restrictions have been imposed in New South Wales after the state recorded more than 100 new Covid cases.
Construction sites will be shut down until July 30 and only “critical” retail including supermarkets and pharmacies will remain open, Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced on Saturday.
“This is our chance to quash this virus and make sure that families and businesses can bounce back as quickly as possible, and our best chance of allowing that to happen is to put a pause on all those worksites between now and July 30,” Ms Berejiklian said.
She also said people who live in Fairfield, Canterbury Bankstown or Liverpool government areas cannot leave the area for work unless they were employed in health or emergency services sectors.
“We want to get out of this as quickly as possible. This Delta variant has been a challenge for every single nation on the planet,” the premier said.
The outbreak in NSW reached an alarming new high, with 111 new cases recorded as of Saturday.
Fronting the media, the state’s Premier Gladys Berejiklian said at least 29 of those were infectious in the community. A man in his 80s died after battling the virus.
Ms Berejiklian said the results were based on 82,000 tests conducted in the past 24 hours. She announced a string of tough new restrictions as part of a “no regrets policy” to deal with the Delta outbreak, which involved “difficult decisions”.
“We need to take extra action today,” Ms Berejiklian said.
She said from midnight only “critical retail” would be open. “Anything that is regarded as non critical retail, will not be able to have face-to-face,” the Premier said. She also banned carpooling “no matter where you are in greater Sydney”.
STATE OF PLAY IN VICTORIA
A seven-storey apartment building in inner Melbourne has been locked down after a resident tested positive to coronavirus.
The state’s Covid-19 commander Jeroen Weimar confirmed on Saturday the building on Burnley St in Richmond was locked down.
He said all residents in the block’s 23 apartments were told to isolate for two weeks.
“This is a significant challenge for anybody to face when Covid comes knocking at your next door apartment,” Mr Weimar said.
An infection control team was sent into the building on Saturday morning to clean and assess the apartment block.
Mr Weimar said the link was made about 8pm on Friday.
It comes after three removalists from Sydney visited the Ariele apartments at Maribyrnong.
The trio have caused the majority of the coronavirus cases in the state’s latest outbreak.
A school student and two teachers have been identified among a spike in new Covid-19 cases in Victoria.
The state recorded 19 new locally acquired Covid-19 cases on Saturday as the number of public exposure sites ballooned to more than 160 overnight.
The state’s health department confirmed all were linked to current outbreaks.
Victoria now has 43 cases linked to the two incursions that jumped the border from Sydney’s deadly Delta outbreak.
The health department said all of the new cases on Saturday were also linked to known outbreaks, which have spawned from a team of Sydney removalists who transited through the state and a family that returned to Melbourne’s north from a NSW red zone.
Health Minister Martin Foley said 18 of the new cases were in the community during their infectious period.
He said about 10,000 primary close contacts have so far been identified and urged everyone to continually check the health department website for more exposure sites.
He announced that an additional case was linked to an infected person who attended Level 2 of the MCG Members Reserve during the Carlton-Geelong match last Saturday.
Two of the man’s friends have also tested positive and they recently travelled to Philip Island where multiple new exposures sites have been identified.
Two colleagues and a close contact of the Trinity Grammar schoolteacher who attended the MCG have been identified as new cases while another student at the St Patrick’s Primary School in Murrumbeena has become infected.
An infected person attended Ms Frankie’s restaurant in Cremorne and transmitted the virus to three other people, including one staff member and another patron sitting nearby.
Meantime, a traveller who arrived in Melbourne ahead of the state’s lockdown and tried to flee the airport has been whacked with a whopping fine.
The mystery passenger, who reportedly arrived from the Sunshine Coast, arrived at Melbourne Airport on Wednesday.
“I am certainly aware we had an incident at the airport on Wednesday night where somebody came on an arriving flight and was stopped by authorised officers and sought to abscond,” Victoria’s Covid-19 commander Jeroen Weimar said.
They were caught within the airport and hit with a $5000 fine, he told reporters.
“The individual … sought to try and leg it away from the authorities and was detained further down the road,” Mr Weimar said.
PM’S VACCINE PLEDGE
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the states will be seeking to involve more pharmacists into the Covid vaccination program.
“Currently pharmacists are working with us to supplement GPs in rural areas where there are not sufficient numbers of GPs to support getting those vaccinations to those communities,” he said, after a meeting of national cabinet on Friday.
“Already, pharmacists are being used in places like south-western Sydney where there is the demand for greater points of presence. We will see pharmacists play an increasing role in the months ahead as the supply increases.
“There is no point having more points of presence with a static amounts of supply. That just increases the logistical difficulty. So at the supply increases, we can have more pharmacists come online, we can have more points of presence out there in the community.”
It comes after Australia administered a record 500,000 doses of Covid vaccine in just three days.
“That means that already this month there have been just shy of two million vaccines, just shy of two million already in the month of July,” Mr Morrison said.
“And each month we are seeing the rate of vaccinations increase as we move towards our goal of ensuring that by the end of the year, that we can have everyone who is seeking to have a vaccination to have one.”
DEAL STRUCK BETWEEN PM AND ANDREWS
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has done a deal with Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, which will see financial support provided to some Victorian workers during the state’s five-day lockdown.
Mr Morrison and federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg issued a statement, revealing they had agreed with Mr Andrews and his Treasurer, Tim Pallas, on a long-term national cabinet deal.
It will see Victorian workers – in areas declared a hotspot by the Commonwealth Chief Medical Officer – get federal support through the Covid-19 disaster payment, even where a lockdown has been set in place by a state or territory government for a period of less than seven days.
“The entitlement to income support will be for those who have lost between eight and less than 20 hours for a payment of $375 and for 20 or more hours for a payment of $600, during the period of the lockdown,” Mr Morrison and Mr Frydenberg said in a joint statement.
“There will be no liquid assets test applied to eligibility for these payments.”
State and territory governments must also agree to provide significant economic support, for the same lockdown period, “to ensure burden sharing between the commonwealth and the state or territory government”.
The deal with Mr Andrews will see workers in Greater Melbourne, as well as the local government areas of Moorabool, Greater Geelong, Queenscliff and Surf Coast qualify for federal support for the five days of Victoria’s lockdown.
Victoria entered a snap five-day lockdown at midnight after a jump in Covid cases.
MORE BLOOD CLOTS LINKED TO AZ
Seven more rare blood clots have been linked to AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine, the nation’s medicines watchdog has revealed.
Four of the clots are confirmed cases of the rare Thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS) that have been linked to the jab. Another three cases were classified as probable cases.
The confirmed cases were in a 67-year-old man from NSW, 67 and 70-year-old women from Victoria, an a 71-year-old man from Western Australia.
The probable cases were in a 48-year-old woman from Victoria, a 61-year-old woman from Western Australia and a 66-year-old woman from the ACT.
The total number of confirmed cases has now risen to 83 from 5.4 million doses administered to date, with 51 cases confirmed and 32 probable.
As reported by South Australian Health authorities on Monday, a 72-year-old woman from South Australia died from TTS following a first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine. Her death is the fourth in Australia linked to the AZ vaccine.
Anyone who has received the AstraZeneca vaccine is urged to consult their doctor if they develop any of the following symptoms after vaccination:
severe or persistent headache or blurred vision
shortness of breath, chest pain, leg swelling or persistent abdominal pain
unusual skin bruising and/or pinpoint round spots beyond the site of vaccination.
The most common time period for onset of TTS symptoms is 4-30 days after vaccination.
The TGA said with the ongoing risk of Covid outbreaks in Australia and the potential for severe long-term effects or fatal consequences of infection, the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine continue to outweigh the risks.
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