Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced GPs would be covered to offer the AstraZeneca vaccine to younger Australians if they request it. Follow us live.
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Eighteen cases of community transmission were detected from nearly 59,000 tests in the 24 hours to 8pm Sunday night. Only six were in isolation while potentially infectious.
Fifteen cases were linked to the Bondi outbreak and two were close contacts of a mystery case.
“While the numbers today are less than the numbers yesterday, we have to be prepared for the numbers to bounce around and we have to be prepared for the numbers to go up considerably,” Premier Gladys Berejiklian said.
“I want to stress about a third of those cases, about six of them were in isolation for the whole time, and some of them were in isolation for part of that time.”
NSW Health said three new overseas-acquired cases and one interstate acquired case were recorded in the same period, bringing the total number of cases in NSW since the beginning of the pandemic to 5,589.
“There have been 130 locally acquired cases reported since 16 June 2021, when the first case of the Bondi cluster, a driver who transported international flight crew, was reported. Of these, 124 are now linked to the Bondi cluster,” Chief Medical Officer Dr Kerry Chant said.
Meanwhile NSW Health has advised that an additional two South Coogee Public School students have tested positive today to COVID-19.
"These students are close contacts of the two previously reported cases at the school,” the spokesman said.
“Based on the additional cases and because there are a number of interactions between children in different year groups… all students are now close contacts and must have been tested and self-isolate for 14 days regardless of a negative test result.”
Australia's sluggish vaccine rollout was mocked by former Liberal Treasurer Joe Hockey, who on Monday night tweeted a graph showing Australia was last among OECD countries for jabs administered so far.
Says it all," Mr Hockey said.
Mr Hockey appeared to delete the tweet within an hour of posting it.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced a no-fault indemnity for GPs who give AstraZeneca vaccines to patients.
Medical advice is that AstraZeneca only be used for over-60s, which the Prime Minister said was only a preference, and GPs could now more freely provide them to patients that wanted them.
The federal government will oversee the scheme.
“We will be implementing a new no fault indemnity scheme for general practitioners who administer COVID-19 vaccines. So this relates to encouraging Australians to go and check to their GP about the vaccination,” he said.
It comes after News Corp Australia reported the fear of GPs, who worried about being sued if they have the jab to under 60s.
The Covid-19 jab is set to be compulsory for aged care workers, three months after all staff were supposed to be vaccinated.
The national cabinet was expected to lock in the mandatory policy at a meeting on Monday night, despite the opposition of health unions and hesitancy from some medical experts.
As of last Friday, only a third of about 260,000 aged care workers nationwide had received at least one Covid-19 jab.
Vaccination teams have visited every aged care home in the country to inoculate residents, with 2553 out of 2566 residential care facilities also visited for second doses.
It’s been 428 days since the last COVID-19 case on the Mid-North Coast but the escalating outbreak across Sydney has regional shoppers heading for the supermarket shelves once more.
Photos posted on social media showed supermarket shelves emptied of toilet paper and other essential items.
Residents in regional NSW have avoided a full lockdown however a wave of new restrictions have been put in place for the next two weeks.
Anybody who had been in Greater Sydney – including the Blue Mountains, Central Coast and Wollongong – since June 21 is required to isolate at home for 14 days.
– Dan Mills
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A bearded protestor who declared himself to be "the prime creator of Earth" and interrupted the NSW Premier's Covid-19 news conference this morning has been fined $1000.
Police said the 42-year-old man was fined for allegedly breaching Sydney's stay-at-home orders.
He was also issued a move-on direction.
NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller said even the prime creator is not above the public health orders.
Chief health officer Kerry Chant has apologised for a contact tracing bungle which incorrectly listed the Crossroads Hotel in Casula as a potential Covid exposure site.
The Crossroads Hotel – the initial site of a significant outbreak last year – was on Saturday listed as a potential exposure site, before a correction was issued yesterday.
The venue visited by a positive Covid case was the Crossways Hotel in Strathfield South, with a health alert issued for the evening of Wednesday June 23.
“I sincerely apologise to the Crossroads Hotel at Casula, and certainly we've corrected that as soon as we found out about that error,” Dr Chant said.
She said the mistake was caused by a “communications error” in identifying the wrong hotel, with contact tracers trying to release potential exposure sites as quickly as possible.
“As soon as we identified that error, we immediately contacted people (potentially exposed to Covid),” Dr Chant said.
On the sidelines of Monday’s media conference, Premier Gladys Berejiklian explained the error as a “typo”.
– James O'Doherty
A house party in Western Sydney that became a coronavirus superspreader event has also become a case study for vaccines.
NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said 24 people tested positive for the virus out of more than 30 partygoers.
He said six fully vaccinated healthcare workers who attended the birthday party in West Hoxton on June 19 were not infected.
"If you're vaccinated, you are much more likely to not be infected with Covid-19," Mr Hazzard said.
Four “high risk venues” across the Eastern Suburbs and Inner West are being watched by NSW Health to see if they turn into venue superspreaders.
NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant named Bondi Beach’s Lyfe Cafe, The Royal Bondi pub and venue, hairdresser Jo Bailey’s Double Bay studio and Great Ocean Foods seafood supplier at Marrickville at Monday’s Covid-19 update presser.
Dr Chant said the four were “high risk” locations, with cases “still arising” from Jo Bailey and Great Ocean Foods.
She said it would take another “five to six days” before no more potential cases were linked to them.
“These are the sort of venues that we’re particularly wanting to make sure we have identified everyone who was possibly at the venue,” Dr Chant said.
“We do need about five or six days to give us that sense because it takes us a little while for the testing to come in.”
Dr Chant also apologised to formerly Covid-stricken Casula’s Crossroads Hotel, which was incorrectly listed as being hit again by the virus late last week.
She said a “communication issue” was at fault for the bungle, which was corrected to name the Crossways Hotel in Strathfield South as an exposed venue.
“I sincerely apologise to the Crossroads Hotel, we corrected that as soon as we found out about the error,” Dr Chant said.
The Crossroads Hotel was the source of NSW’s second outbreak in July 2020, where a “superspreader” Melbourne freight truck driver infected a large number of pubgoers on a Friday night out.
NSW Health will establish priority queues for close contacts, the elderly and pregnant women at testing sites to speed up long wait times.
Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant announced at Monday’s Covid-19 update presser after several cases among “elderly and frail” community members, testing sites would create a fast tracked queue to make sure they were tested first.
“(The elderly) cases led us to wonder whether they were concerned about waiting in queues or the time it may take,” Dr Chant said.
“We just want to reassure those elderly or frail members of the community, as well as pregnant women, that should you present (for testing), we are asking all of our services to have a prioritised queue or way to bring you to the front so that you don’t have to wait.”
Both groups will still have to call their GP to get advice on whether testing should be done.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian said close contacts will also be able to jump the line.
"If you've been announced as being at a close contact venue, we want you at the front of the queue," the Premier said.
A “frustrated” Premier hit out at claims of vaccine hesitancy, calling on the federal government to sign up more GPS to offer jabs as more vaccine supplies roll in.
Gladys Berejiklian rubbished talk of vaccine hesitancy at today’s Covid-19 update press conference, telling reporters her main concern was more GPs being eligible to distribute vaccines across NSW and Australia.
“There is no hesitancy for people to get the vaccine, my understanding is all the doses we have are being expended very quickly,” the Premer said.
“We need to plan ahead, I’m getting frustrated that people aren’t doing that at other levels… we have those doses available, we need to make sure enough GPs are being signed up."
She added: “I’ve been calling for this for weeks and weeks, if not months, our GPs want to do more, they want more doses, they want other GPs to come online, but that’s not something the NSW government can't control.”
Covid cases are on the rise in NSW, and the true toll of the virus this year has been revealed, with almost 4000 Australians dying from the virus in 2023.
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