Covid cluster: trapped Bondi residents’ desperate vaccine plea

Residents of a Bondi Junction apartment under police guard have held signs to the windows of their apartments as another person was diagnosed with Covid.

Anxious residents have posted a sign asking ‘where is the vaccine?’ at a Bondi Junction apartment block that’s the epicentre of an alarming new Covid outbreak.

The tower block on Botany Street in Bondi Junction has had its entrances cordoned off with security officers patrolling the building after nine people from five different units tested positive to the virus.

Police and security officers outside the Bondi block today. Picture John Grainger

A note posted in a window of the Bondi Junction block. Picture: John Grainger

Security patrols at the entrance to the Bondi Junction apartment block today. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Jeremy Piper

A squad of nurses in PPE was yesterday deployed to the building’s 29 units, where every single resident was swabbed for the virus before being sent into two weeks of self-isolation.

NSW chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant said authorities had found the source of infection and those who tested positive have been evacuated.

NSW Health is working with residents of an apartment block in the Eastern Suburbs where eight cases of COVID have been identified in recent days across five different households.

— NSW Health (@NSWHealth) July 12, 2021

One resident said the lockdown was taking its toll, with residents not even allowed to take out their rubbish.

“Life is kind of crap, police and cameraman stationed outside We have no solution for how to dispose of our garbage as we cant leave our apartment and i’ve literally just given birth two weeks ago and have a toddler running around with cabin fever,” she said.

The owner of one of the units, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said many were left in the dark about what was happening.

“They don’t know anything about what’s going on. They don’t know who has got it (Covid),” he said.

Despite the virus largely being concentrated in the southwest, cases are emerging in southeastern and western Sydney, where people are being told to be on high alert for the disease.

A police van secures the perimeter of the apartment block. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Jeremy Piper

“While we have indicated Fairfield, everyone else also needs to remain vigilant,” Dr Chant said on Tuesday, pointing to Roselands, Rosebery, Canterbury, Belmore, Sutherland Shire, St George, West Hoxton, Glenfield and Green Valley as areas for increase testing.

She also warned people living in unit blocks must take care moving around common areas.

“If you’re going to get your waste disposal … please see that as a risk as well,” Dr Chant said.

NSW on Monday recorded 112 cases of the virus, the vast majority of which were recorded in the Fairfield council area in the city’s southwest.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian says the community would have to have zero cases of active community cases for the lockdown to end by July 16, with many predicting it will last for several more weeks.

“That is the number that we need to see go down to as close to zero as possible, before we can get advice from Health to say the lockdown can end,” she said.