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Australia records highest COVID cases as fears NSW following Victoria
Australia has recorded its highest number of daily confirmed COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began with concerns NSW is following a similar path to Victoria's latest outbreak.
There were 502 new cases nationally on Wednesday, including 484 in Victoria and 16 in NSW.
It comes as Sydney Local Health District confirmed on Wednesday night it is testing staff and residents of Ashfield Baptist Homes in the inner-west after a staff member at the aged care facility tested positive to COVID-19.
The staff member dined at the Thai Rock restaurant at Wetherill Park in Sydney's south-west, taking the cluster there to 38.
It has been nine days since a spike in community transmissions of COVID-19 began in NSW with the cluster at the Crossroads Hotel, and the new cases follow a similar trajectory to Victoria in the early days of its latest outbreak, Herald data analysis shows.
There have now been 94 new cases of community transmission confirmed in NSW in the past nine days. NSW Health said there were eight cases with no known links to existing outbreaks.
Victoria, which is in its 38th day of rising locally acquired case numbers since it reached double digits on June 15, had recorded 115 cases by its ninth day. It has since confirmed 4860 more locally acquired cases.
However, there were significantly more cases with an unknown source and those listed as "under investigation" in Victoria in the early stages of its outbreak than there are in NSW.
NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant said "the COVID situation in NSW is not the same as in Victoria" but said all residents must exercise extreme caution. Health Minister Brad Hazzard said consideration was being given to making masks mandatory on public transport in coming days.
"I cannot stress enough that we are currently at a critical point in our fight against COVID-19 in NSW - as we respond to a number of seeding events leading to outbreaks," Dr Chant said.
But Mary-Louise McLaws, a professor of epidemiology at UNSW and an adviser to the World Health Organisation on COVID-19 infection prevention and control, said NSW was at a "potential alert phase", having recorded more than 100 cases over the past two weeks.
"That's a number that says we could be going into a pattern that is difficult to impact without doing a lockdown or big intervention," Professor McLaws said.
She said Victoria reached that figure on June 18 and by the end of the month, it had nearly 400 additional cases.
"After being exposed you can become infectious to other people at day three, which means human contact tracers will be working very hard to contact everybody in a couple of days, they'll be behind the clock each day," Professor McLaws said.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews on Wednesday revealed that among the reasons for the rise in numbers was that nine in 10 people are still not following rules around self-isolating as soon as they feel symptoms and until they receive test results.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian and NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant on Wednesday.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
Mr Andrews said of 3810 cases between July 7-21, about 90 per cent did not isolate between the first onset of symptoms and getting tested.
About 50 per cent did not isolate in the period between getting tested and receiving a result.
Adam Kamradt-Scott, an expert in the spread and control of infectious diseases, said it was too early to compare the "precarious situation" in Victoria to the community transmission in NSW.
"As Premier [Daniel Andrews] has flagged, people aren't doing the right thing, so there's this genuine risk that community transmission will continue to occur," Associate Professor Kamradt-Scott said
He said while the border controls enacted two weeks ago will have reduced the risk of importing more cases from Victoria, that was not a reason for NSW to relax.
"It is too early to suggest that we are on the same trajectory, but obviously that is a risk in NSW if we don't see those public health measures, testing, and tracing being implemented," he said.
Ms Berejiklian urged people to avoid crowds at the weekend, and warned that gatherings in homes and hospitality venues were the riskiest.
She said her message to police was to enforce all laws around restrictions.
"Please throw the book at anyone not doing the right thing," Ms Berejiklian said.
A pop-up COVID-19 testing clinic in Sydney's west.Credit: Dean Sewell
NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard indicated mandatory masks were being considered on public transport, saying masks were a "good idea" on buses and trains.
"Certainly if I were getting on a bus, in all likelihood you wouldn't be able to socially distance so yes it's a good idea [to wear a mask]," Mr Hazzard told radio station 2GB.
Deputy Chief Medical Officer Professor Michael Kidd said the 502 confirmed cases on Wednesday came less than six weeks after Australia reported only two cases on June 9.
"This shows how quickly outbreaks can occur and spread," he said.
NSW's 16 new cases saw the Crossroads Hotel outbreak grow to 53.
Five cases from that cluster were also linked to the Our Lady of Lebanon Cathedral in Harris Park.
Of the new cases, three were close contacts of cases linked to the Crossroads in Casula in Sydney's south-west, and 11 were linked to the Thai Rock restaurant at Wetherill Park.
One of the new cases was in hotel quarantine, and one was a person linked to a previously identified case that is not associated with a known cluster.