5 new Covid cases in Northern NSW, Southern Cross Uni closed for cleaning

Casino will go into lockdown after five new Covid-19 cases were recorded in the Northern Rivers overnight.

Dean Gould from Southern Cross University. Picture: Jerad Williams

The Northern Rivers town of Casino will go into a 10-day lockdown from midnight on Friday.

The lockdown will be run until October 11, when restrictions across all of NSW lift for the fully vaccinated.

The rest of the Richmond Valley is not in lockdown, however stay-at-home orders were introduced for the neighbouring Kyogle shire on Thursday.

Five new locally acquired cases of Covid-19 were recorded in Northern NSW in the 24 hours to 8pm Thursday.

In providing Friday’s update on Covid cases, NSW Health’s Dr Jeremy McAnulty said in that time period there were two new cases recorded in the Kyogle Shire, one in the Casino area, one on the Tweed and one in Byron Bay.

This is in addition to five cases previously confirmed for the Northern Rivers and the region’s active cases now sit at a total of 14.

There were also new detections of virus fragments in sewage samples taken from Hastings Point and Ballina, as well as Armidale and Tamworth.

“Everyone in these areas should be particularly wary of symptoms and if you get any symptoms at all please come forward for testing,” Dr McAnulty said.

Border restrictions tightened

Queensland border restrictions will be tightened for people from the Kyogle Shire from 1am Saturday.

Northern NSW Local Health District acting chief executive Lynne Weir said the new Casino, Kyogle and Tweed cases were all linked to the Kyogle cluster.

Ms Weir said the new Byron Bay case was a household contact of the previously reported case in that town.

“Contact tracing and investigations are currently underway, and information about any new public exposure venues will be provided as soon as possible,” Ms Weir said.

To 8pm on 30 September, the total number of active cases in Northern NSW is 14.

The latest national vaccination data, issued on September 30.

The Mid North Coast had three new cases in the 24 hours to 8pm.

University remains closed

Southern Cross University remains closed for cleaning as NSW Health has warned more regional lockdowns could be possible, depending on Covid risks.

Hours before the Kyogle Shire – which has four active cases – went into lockdown overnight, it was revealed a contact of one of those cases worked at Southern Cross University’s Lismore campus while unknowingly infectious.

SCU chief marketing officer Dean Gould said the infected staff member was inadvertently exposed to a Covid case – who didn’t know they were infectious – in Kyogle last Friday.

The staffer attended their job in a multidisciplinary laboratory at the university on Monday and Tuesday.

“On the Tuesday he started to feel a bit unwell so took himself home at the end of the shift,” Mr Gould said.

“He decided that night that he would get a Covid test … so he proactively sought that.”

Mr Gould said the lab worker informed SCU of the situation immediately when he returned a positive test.

Contact tracing has begun.

“In some ways there’s a few things in our favour,” Mr Gould said.

“His work is fairly solitary.”

Contact tracing is being done to consider the reach of contact of an infected person who worked in a lab at Southern Cross University in Lismore on Monday and Tuesday.
Photo Jay Cronan / The Northern Star

He said the employee wore masks as a matter of course during his lab work.

Separate QR codes are used for people to check in and out of different buildings on the sprawling campus.

He said it was anticipated there were nine contacts of the case, five of them close contacts and the remainder casual based on preliminary information.

“That definition will have to be determined by NSW Health,” Mr Gould said.

He said all those impacted workers were isolating and part of the uni was being cleaned.

“At this stage, we believe that cleaning the areas where there’s potential exposure is the primary goal,” he said.

He said those processes and the university’s timeline to reopen would however be guided by health authorities.

Southern Cross University.

“It will depend on what NSW Health determines, it will also depend on the tests that come back from those contacts of the person affected and if it all is pretty clear then there’s no reasonable reason why we wouldn’t reopen on Tuesday,” he said.

Human element missed by many

He said many had not yet returned to on-campus work and learning prior to this exposure.

“Our directive to staff when we came out of lockdown was the preference is you still work from home.”

He said although SCU had long been delivering online studies, the institution had “amplified the quality of that” in recent years and the pandemic had been a catalyst to progress that even more.

But there is still the collective human element to learning which has been missed by many.

The Kyogle Shire went into lockdown at 12am Friday, October 1.

Constantly monitoring evolving situation

As the Kyogle Shire experiences its first day of lockdown, a NSW Health spokeswoman said stay-at-home orders could be reintroduced for other regional local government areas due to an increased Covid risk.

“NSW Health is constantly monitoring the evolving situation throughout the state and will not hesitate to update its advice to Government if this is required to protect the health and safety of a community,” she said.

“This monitoring includes any cases, exposure events, sewage detections or risks identified through ongoing case investigations in all areas of NSW.”

She said an “expert panel” convened by NSW Health and involving members of the local public health unit considered a range of factors before providing advice on lockdowns to Health Minister Brad Hazzard and chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant.

The Byron Shire has a positive case of Covid and there are at least 25 venues of concern across Northern NSW. Byron and Tweed were released from lockdown this week.

“The presence of a case in area without stay-at-home orders does not mean NSW Health will automatically advise the reintroduction of stay-at-home orders, as the specifics of each case must be assessed with respect to the potential risk to the community,” she said.

“While a positive case in one area may have been infectious in the community, with several exposures of public concern, another case may have acquired their infection outside the area and been in isolation since their return.”

She said sometimes more testing and analysis or interviews were required before advice could be provided to the government.

“NSW Health always take a precautionary approach to ensure we stop the spread in our regional and rural communities,” she said.

NSW Cross Border Commissioner James McTavish.

Clear plan needed on border

Border Commissioner James McTavish has meanwhile called on the Queensland government to make a clear plan on how the border will align with NSW‘s road map out of Covid.

As it stands Queensland is about six weeks behind NSW in their vaccination rates, which would see Queensland reaching 70 per cent fully vaccinated around early December.

However with NSW coming out of lockdown for the fully vaccinated on October 11, he‘s asking for a clear plan from Queensland.

“Our view has been for people in communities that aren't locked down should be able to enjoy freedoms,” Mr McTavish said.

Mr McTavish said he was hopeful families across the states would be able to spend Christmas together however it was too early to make the call.

Following a national cabinet meeting on Friday afternoon he expected there would be more answers from Queensland on the border.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said during a Friday press conference her government’s team handling border exemption applications had been expanded.

She said they would handle the influx of requests “as methodically and as compassionately as possible”.