Coronavirus NSW: Aged care worker tests positive for COVID-19
Staff and families at an NSW age care facility are being urgently contacted after a worker showed signs of COVID-19. It comes as new infections across the state rose by 12 overnight, and the national death toll to 80.
NSW
Don't miss out on the headlines from NSW. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Another worker in an aged care facility has within 48 hours of working shown symptoms of COVID-19.
NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard confirmed the news during a press conference today, saying they would name the facility once all staff and families had been notified.
“It’s very much a rolling situation,” he said.
Mr Hazzard also expressed condolences to the family of a 96-year-old lady, who passed away at the Anglicare Newmarch facility last night after contracting the virus.
Another four cases have been confirmed at the Anglicare home – two staff and two residents — bringing the total cases to 17 staff and 31 residents.
“That’s a reminder to us all, if you’re not feeling well, please don’t go to work no matter how minor it is,” he said. “Because unfortunately this virus can be a deadly virus, but it’s also a very cagey and sneaky virus.”
NSW has reported 12 new COVID-19 cases since 8pm last night, a slight increase on previous days, with 4840 tests carried out during that period
Total confirmed cases in NSW now stand at 2994, of which 2193 have recovered. There are 203 people receiving care from NSW Health, in home and in hospitals,
Totally negative tests in NSW have now reached 190,262.
Mr Hazzard urged anyone with the slightest symptoms to come forward and be tested, as NSW was “desperate” to get more testing done to understand how the virus was behaving in the population.
“If you’re feeling anything at all, even if you think it’s the most mild symptoms, please go along to your GP or one of COVID pop-up clinics.
“Don’t be nervous about it, don’t be hesitant.”
ACTIVE COVID-19 CASES PLUNGING
Three-quarters of Australians to contract coronavirus have recovered, leaving barely 1500 active cases nationwide and fewer than 1000 in NSW.
The number of people still carrying COVID-19 has plunged by more than a third this week alone, analysis of official data by The Saturday Telegraph reveals.
Nationally, just 14 new cases emerged on Friday, of which seven were in NSW. Seventy-nine people have died, including 35 in this state.
There was a fifth death at Anglicare’s virus-plagued Newmarch House nursing home with a 96-year-old woman dying from COVID-19.
Still, Australia was now in a better position than “just about any other country,” Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy declared on Friday.
This was because during the “exporting phase from China, we uniquely got on top of those cases,” Professor Murphy said. “We got testing going early. We identified all of those cases. We tested widely, one of the widest testers. And we managed to capture, contain, isolate, quarantine contacts for all of those exported cases.
“In those countries that have significant problems, they didn’t. And they had widespread community transmission before they actually realised they had a problem,” he said.
The flattening of the curve was “very, very satisfying”.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison praised the Chinese Australian community for its “excellent work” during the ‘export phase’.
“That’s when the virus was first exported, transmitted out of China into many countries around the world,” Mr Morrison said. “In that first phase, Australia moved very quickly to put in place the restrictions of travel into Australia, and then the excellent work done by … the Chinese Australian community here meant that Australia was substantively protected from that first export wave of the virus across the world.
But the PM said Australia had been “more significantly impacted (by) what I’d call the ‘repatriation phase’.”
Australians returning from parts of the world hit by the “initial export of the virus” had been exposed “they brought it home”.
This accounted for more than two-thirds of total cases at certain times, he said.
That had been tackled through quarantining and broader social restrictions.
We were now in “the ‘community phase’,” he said, which required increased testing, tracing and “rapid response” capability.
The Telegraph’s analysis of official data shows the number of so-called active cases of COVID-19 in Australia has this week fallen from 2354 to 1539. Of these, 926 are in NSW, down from 1214 on April 21.
Nationally, among 6675 confirmed cases, 5136 or 77 per cent have recovered.
NSW Health this week said information from more than 2000 cases revealed 50 per cent recovered after 16 days, rising to 75 per cent within three weeks and 95 per cent of cases after six weeks.
Originally published as Coronavirus NSW: Aged care worker tests positive for COVID-19
Wakeley stabbing Bishop slams Labor’s misinformation bill
A controversial Sydney church where a priest was allegedly stabbed over his political and religious opinions has blasted the Albanese government’s new misinformation bill.
Almost 500 new homes to be built over Sydney Olympic Metro
Almost 500 new homes will be built on the new Sydney Olympic Park Metro precinct with major construction set to begin after the site was finally approved by the NSW government.