NSW COVID: Virus detected in sewage, Berala BWS cluster grows
Dozens of Sydney suburbs have been put on alert after sewage surveillance detected signs of the virus in the Liverpool and Glenfield areas. Follow our COVID-19 latest here.
NSW
Don't miss out on the headlines from NSW. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Dozens of Sydney suburbs have been put on alert after sewage surveillance detected signs of the virus in the Liverpool and Glenfield areas.
Thousands of residents have now been urged to monitor for symptoms across south west Sydney.
NSW Health issued an alert on Monday, highlighting that virus fragments were detected at the two treatment plants in Sydney’s southwest.
Health authorities said findings could simply indicate the presence of known cases of COVID-19 that had been diagnosed in recent weeks.
“However, NSW Health is concerned there could be other active cases in the local community in people who have not been tested and who might incorrectly assume their symptoms are just a cold,” the department said.
The alert comes as NSW diagnosed two new cases, both believed to be linked to the growing BWS Berala cluster today.
Both cases were found after the 8pm-cut off last night and will be reported in Tuesday’s numbers.
The Liverpool and Glenfield sewage treatment plants cover the suburbs of Bardia, Hinchinbrook, Hoxton Park, Abbotsbury, Ingleburn, Prestons, Holsworthy, Edmondson Park, Austral, Cecil Park, Cecil Hills, Elizabeth Hills, Bonnyrigg Heights, Edensor Park, Green Valley, Pleasure Point, Casula, Hammondville, Liverpool, Moorebank, Wattle Grove, Miller, Cartwright, Lurnea, Warwick Farm, Chipping Norton, Voyager Point, Macquarie Links, Glenfield, Catherine Field, Gledswood Hills, Leppington, West Hoxton, Horningsea Park, Middleton Grange, Len Waters Estate, Carnes Hill, Denham Court, Airds, Ambarvale, Appin
Blair Athol, Blairmount, Bow Bowing, Bradbury, Campbelltown, Claymore, Eagle Vale, Englorie Park, Eschol Park, Glen Alpine, Kearns, Leumeah, Macquarie Fields, Menangle Park, Minto, Raby, Rosemeadow, Ruse, St Andrews, St Helens Park, Varroville and Woodbine.
BERALA CLUSTER GROWS AS MANDATORY MASK WEARING BEGINS
No locally acquired cases of coronavirus were detected across the state until 8pm last night, however, two cases have been reported since that time linked to the Berala BWS cluster prompting authorities to urge more people to come forward for testing.
More than 22,000 people came forward for testing, however, Deputy Premier John Barilaro said that number is still “far too low”.
“If we’re going to succeed in staying ahead of the COVID pandemic, testing is crucial in large numbers so we can be confident of the data when we’re making decisions as we progress going forward,” he said.
“My plea today for those in Western Sydney, please come out in numbers.
“If you have been tested previously, but you’re still feeling unwell or have a symptom, get tested again.”
Mr Barilaro said that since 8pm last night, two cases have been reported that are linked to the Berala BWS.
“We have already identified two cases overnight connected to the Berala BWS,” he said.
“So, again, my message to everybody, even though today we are talking about a zero day of locally-acquired cases, it is important that we keep that testing regime up.”
NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant said that of the two cases recorded after 8pm, one was a man in his 40s who visited the BWS at Berala on December 24 and another is a woman in her 40s, who is also linked to the BWS and Woolworths at Berala.
“The Berala cluster originated from returning overseas travellers and then there was a healthcare worker person who was involved in the transfer of those patients,” Dr Chant said.
“Then that person passed it on unknowingly to a close contact and that close contact went to the BWS.”
Dr Chant said that the person at the centre of the BWS cluster had no symptoms when entering the store and no reason to suspect they might have contracted COVID-19.
“That’s why we need those universal precautions of keeping that physical distancing and the mask-wearing,” she said.
“It is critical that anyone who attended the BWS store between December 22 and 31, even for a very short period of time, a few minutes during the times listed on the New South Wales Government website, gets tested and isolates for 14 days regardless of the result received,” Dr Chant added.
MASSIVE SYDNEY WEDDING COVID BREACH
NSW Police Minister David Elliott revealed this morning that yet another wedding reception had breached public health orders over the weekend, with the event hosting twice the number of guests allowed under current restrictions.
“I’ve just been briefed by police over the weekend, another wedding reception operator has been fined,” Mr Elliott said on 2GB.
“He had twice the amount of the amount of people down there in Fairfield than he was supposed to have at a wedding.
“He had about 600 or 700 people, when he was really only supposed to have 350.
“That’s just a blatant breach of the orders.”
Mr Elliott said the 46-year-old owner operator of the Spencer St venue was fined $5000 for breaching restrictions.
Fairfield is located less than 10 kilometres away from the growing Berala cluster that authorities are currently working to contain.
Mr Elliott said that the news had “infuriated” him.
“This is not the way I wanted to spend my Monday morning, I can assure you,” he said.
Deputy Premier John Barilaro said further penalties were being discussed.
“We’re angry about it,” he said.
“We’ll always reconsider what penalties look like and, we haven’t had such a breach, a deliberate breach, as we saw with that particular example.
“I know myself and the Health Minister this morning actually spoke about is that penalty sufficient.”
BONDI PROTEST AS MANDATORY MASK LAW BEGINS
Dozens of anti-mask protesters have marched through a Bondi shopping centre in defiance after the state government made mask-wearing compulsory at some indoor venues in a bid to stop the spread of coronavirus.
The protesters swarmed Westfield Bondi Junction on Sunday without wearing masks, with placards asserting their freedom and claiming masks do not protect people against the disease.
PR queen and influencer Roxy Jacenko happened to be there at the time and blasted the protest on her Instagram story.
“Sorry but people have died. Put a f***ing mask on. This does not sit well with me. Disgraceful,” Jacenko wrote.
“And what’s more, totally disappointing to see kids being taught to have pure disregard for the advice of authorities.”
The anti-maskers walked through crowds of shoppers donning masks with placards attacking the government’s mandate just hours before the NSW Police warned anyone who refused to wear a mask would risk a $200 on-the-spot fine.
The group sang: “I would rather be a human than a slave,” and “you can stick your stupid mask rules up your a***.”
“We are the 99 per cent,” they sang.
One protester held a placard which claimed “masks increase the risk of infection,” while another referred to masks as a “face diaper.”
A great way to convince people to wear masks is for the government to make them free for those in need, another is to check out the right wing religious fringe who oppose mask wearing. This from Bondi Junction shops today pic.twitter.com/VkRqUWIbxF
— David Shoebridge (@ShoebridgeMLC) January 3, 2021
“I fully support your right to hide in your house or wear a face diaper until you can take an untested vax … How’s that for an [sic] reaction” the sign read.
“The same people mandating masks are suppressing police documents on government pedos,” said another.
One protester who appeared to be an anti-vaxxer wore a shirt saying “no jab, no play? No way!"
Greens MP David Shoebridge said the protest was “a great way to convince people to wear masks.”
One local Bondi resident on Sunday posted in a local Facebook group claiming just 75 per cent of people were not wearing masks.
It comes as NSW Police prepare to enforce mask-wearing at shopping centres, public transport, cinemas, places of worship, hair and beauty salons and hospitality venues.
Anyone who does not wear a mask in these indoor venues risks a $200 fine. Children under 12 are exempt but are encouraged to wear masks where practicable.
NSW Police attended but no one was arrested.
Police Minister David Elliott condemned the anti-mask protest that occurred in Bondi yesterday.
“There is absolutely no inconvenience to wearing a mask in my mind,” he said.
“But there will be an inconvenience if we have to go back into lockdown. People need to realise that these aren’t measures that the Government wants to introduce.
“There’s no conspiracy theory, wearing a mask is not an inconvenience, having to stay at home and losing your job will be.”
CRONULLA WOMAN FINED TWICE IN BYRON BAY
A 27-year-old Cronulla woman was fined twice over the weekend for ignoring health advice.
Police spoke to the woman at a resort in Byron Bay on Thursday, when they found that she was aware that she was a close contact of a confirmed coronavirus case, however she was not self-isolating and had not sought testing.
She was instructed to immediately get a test and was provided with PPE to assist with safe travel to the facility.
However, when officers returned to the resort about 8pm the following day, she was found to have ignored advice once again and was subsequently fined $1000.
On Sunday, officers found the woman again ignoring health advice, swimming in the resort’s pool.
She was fined another $1000.
Also on the weekend, a Northern Beaches couple were fined $1000 each for travelling to Yamba without a valid excuse.
BERALA BUG AT BOTTLE SHOP
A catastrophic border failure which has exposed tens of thousands people in Western Sydney to the coronavirus has led to calls for an urgent overhaul of the system used to transport returned travellers to quarantine.
NSW chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant on Sunday revealed that the cluster at Berala in Western Sydney began when a worker transporting returned travellers from overseas into quarantine contracted the bug.
Menzies Health Institute infectious diseases expert Professor Nigel McMillan said: “There is clearly something that is not going right.
“Sydney is taking the bulk of the returnees and the subsequent risk. We keep having these transport workers getting infected,” Prof McMillan said.
He hoped authorities were looking “very hard” at the issue. “This is our biggest danger point where we are going to get infections so it is something that needs tweaking.”
It is the fourth border breach in NSW in a month after a van driver shuttling aircrew and a hotel quarantine cleaner became infected and a breakout at Avalon closed down the entire northern beaches.
The cluster at Berala in Western Sydney has grown to 13 cases with thousands who attended the BWS store on Woodburn Road between December 22 and December 31 told to isolate immediately.
“Clearly we have some major concerns in relation to the number of people who may have been exposed in the area around Berala,” NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said.
Dr Chant said a worker transporting a family from overseas became infected and transmitted the virus to a colleague. That person then went into the BWS on December 20 “for a fleeting period of time” and passed on the virus during “very minimal exposure” in the bottle shop.
“What is concerning is the brevity of the exposure that has led to transmission,” Dr Chant said.
Contract tracers have already contacted 2000 people in relation to the BWS case but the scale of the exposure was shown by the fact that 1000 customers visited the store on Christmas Eve alone.
Thousands of people have been asked to get tested if they had been in contact with anyone who visited the store during the 10-day window.
“What we’re asking them to do is if you’re in this situation, for the secondary close contacts, to isolate until the (primary) person has got a negative test,” Dr Chant said.
Dr Chant said genomic sequencing showed the Berala virus strain was separate from the one at Avalon, the original source of which may never be known.
Global health security expert at the University of Sydney Professor Adam Kamradt-Scott said:
“This is the nature of the virus we are dealing with, it takes advantage of any momentary loss of concentration to transmit.”
NSW Labor Health spokesman Ryan Park added: “There have been a number of holes in the quarantine system and they keep happening. They need to look at the so-called fortress in NSW and make sure no one is escaping out of the back door.”
NSW yesterday reported eight new local cases from 18,923 tests. Five were linked to the Berala cluster, two to Avalon and one to Wollongong. There were also three cases in hotel quarantine.
PUBLIC SUPPORTS BIG GOVERNMENT COVER—UP
NSW Police officers will be out in force on Monday ensuring that everyone on public transport and indoor venues is wearing a mask.
Failure to wear a mask at venues including shopping centres, cinemas and playing the pokies can result in a $200 fine.
However NSW Deputy Police commissioner Mal Lanyon said issuing the fine “will be a last resort.“
“In the initial aspect of this health order we will be focusing on compliance,” he said. “We want the community to work with us and wear masks in those (indoor) settings.”
However, if Sunday’s dry run was anything to go by, NSW will, on the whole, obediently grin and bare its new mask edict.
Out in force shopping, in church and on public transport, were a sea of masked, law abiding, residents, many tugging at the uncomfortable fabrics.
Masked-up Michelle Levingstone, her daughter Emily, 13, and friend Ireland Kennedy, 13, left the northern beaches southern zone to peruse the sales at the CBD’s Pitt Street mall.
“It’s uncomfortable and hot, I wouldn’t wear one if I didn’t have to but I don’t want a $200 fine every time I step outside. We’re getting into the swing it,” Ms Levingstone, from Clontarf, said.
Shops had insisted on masks as a condition of entry, she said.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian, has threatened $200 fines for non compliance.
Jenna Acharya, 31, and friend Amanda Gilmore, were shopping in Sydney’s Oxford Street yesterday, getting used to wearing masks in public.
“People sound muffled, you struggle to hear them and it’s uncomfortable having something hot around your mouth constantly, it’s excessive when you think in the UK there are 50,000 new cases a day but I understand we need to contain the spread, here,” said Ms Acharya.
PUSH FOR EARLIER NATIONAL CABINET MEETING
Infectious diseases experts are calling on Prime Minister Scott Morrison to reconvene the national cabinet ahead of the next scheduled date of February 5.
The calls come as India becomes the latest country to give emergency approval for the rollout of the Oxford University and AstraZeneca vaccine. Australia is not expecting to start vaccinating until March at the earliest.
On the weekend Mr Morrison insisted “the national cabinet is not an operational committee” and there was no need to bring forward the next meeting.
Despite outbreaks in Sydney and Victoria, he said advice from the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee meant the national cabinet’s “views on borders will be the same if they met this afternoon as they were a month ago”.
However, Global health security expert at the University of Sydney Professor Adam Kamradt-Scott said the cabinet needed to reconvene sooner.
“I think there is a case for getting the premiers and chief ministers together to work through the issues of state borders as soon as possible,” he said.
“The numbers in Sydney are quite low, but unfortunately it seems to be the default position to close the borders as soon as anything happens. That is not a long-term strategy.”
NSW Labor Health spokesman Ryan Park said: “The national cabinet should be meeting very soon given we have had spikes across Sydney.”
He said border closures and accelerating the roll out of the vaccine should top the agenda.
“I am surprised, given that other countries are able to introduce the vaccine, that we cannot do it earlier,” Mr Park said.
HOURS-LONG TESTING QUEUES ACROSS AUSTRALIA
Thousands of Australians desperate to do the right thing are being turned away from, or facing queues of up to six hours at COVID-19 testing clinics across the country.
Melbourne, Brisbane and Gold Coast centres are all reporting massive wait times on Sunday, after desperate pleas from Victorian and Queensland authorities.
Meanwhile, New South Wales Health is urging more people to get tested, after the state recorded eight new cases on Sunday morning out of 18,923 tests.
Despite the long queue times, Queensland continued its run of zero COVID-19 cases on Sunday.
On Saturday, Queensland’s chief health officer said anyone in Queensland who had entered the state from Victoria since December 21 to immediately get tested and isolate until they received a negative result.
It prompted hundreds to flock to Brisbane’s only late-night testing clinic, the Royal Brisbane Hospital, only to be told they could not be tested as the centre was closing at 9pm.
Thousands of Queenslanders have spent Sunday morning standing or sitting in queues, some as long as six hours.
ABC Breakfast host Lisa Millar tweeted from a Gold Coast clinic that she had moved “about 100 metres since she joined the queue two hours ago.”
“People arriving now are being told they may not get tested before end of the day now,” she wrote at 12.20pm AEST.
Line is moving but slowly. I’ve moved about 100 metres since I joined 2 hours ago. Everyone being very patient but people arriving now are being told they may not get tested before end of the day now. https://t.co/xfJTJ5Dg7G
— Lisa Millar (@LisaMillar) January 3, 2021
Shadow Minister for Health, Ros Bates said the state could not afford to have one person “who may have COVID-19 turned away.”
“As a registered nurse, I know the immense pressure our hard working hospital staff are under,” she said.
“Our police officers are patrolling our border 24/7, yet testing clinics are closing at 9pm? It doesn’t make sense.”
In Victoria, authorities are urging people to be patient as they too experience massive wait times, with some clinics being forced to close their doors due to reaching capacity.
Despite that, the state recorded 22,477 tests in the 24 hours to Sunday morning with just three positive cases, all linked to the Black Rock cluster.
Acting premier Jacinta Allan said delays at the state’s 190 testing clinics were in part due to many healthcare workers still being on leave.
“I do want to acknowledge the hardworking healthcare staff over the course of 2020 … they have worked so hard to protect and support the Victorian community. Over this holiday period we have seen a number of them take some well earned time off,” Ms Allan said.
“I really want to thank those staff who have returned early from their breaks to provide extra assistance with the testing sites across the state.”
COVID-19 Commander Jeroen Weimar said more testing sites would be opened over coming days.
“Every test is important in this environment and I thank everybody who is making such a heroic effort,” he said.
All 13 Department of Health and Human Services drive-through clinics will be open until 8pm for the foreseeable future.
The Melbourne Showgrounds testing centre will also remain open until 7pm.
TV LEGEND CONTRACTS COVID-19
Join the conversation
One woman holds the key to solving 50-year-old double murder
It has been 50 years since two nurses, Lorraine Wilson and Wendy Evans, were murdered at the bottom of the Toowoomba Range, and despite two coronial inquests, the answer to who did it lies with a mysterious woman who has never been identified.
Read more
Chip off the old block: Down syndrome no barrier for Jagger
Little Jagger Lemmon is loving the water thanks to his new buddy and swimming coach Chip Hanson. The pair, who both have Down syndrome, have an incredible bond.
Read more