Coronavirus NSW: Teens arrested for COVID breach after Sydney returns
Two teenagers have been arrested in a Queensland shopping centre after bypassing the state’s strict border restrictions on their arrival from Sydney.
NSW
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Batemans Bay High School on the south coast will be closed on Tuesday after a student tested positive to COVID-19.
The school announced in a statement that they were alerted to the case by NSW Health and will close for deep cleaning and contact tracing.
Anyone connected to the school should watch for cold and flu symptoms, and a pop up testing facility at Hanging Rock will be set up to cater for “increased demands”.
Meanwhile, two teenagers who returned to the Sunshine Coast from Sydney before Queensland’s borders shut have been taken into police custody for COVID-19 testing.
Police Superintendent Craig Hawkins said the girls, aged 15 and 16, allegedly breached directives regarding quarantine and testing.
One of the girls is from QLD, the other is from NSW.
They were found at Noosa Civic Shopping Centre on Monday morning after a 24 hour police search, but were not displaying any coronavirus symptoms.
It's understood the teenagers returned to Brisbane last Friday via train before travelling to the Sunshine Coast.
Supt Hawkins said the girls did not tell police where they had travelled from.
“They weren’t completely honest with where they had been,” he said.
“But later on we discovered that they had come from a hot spot.”
Supt Hawkins said police had been looking for the two “young ladies” for 24 hours.
“They arrived from hotspot Sydney last week and police were looking for them to check the veracity of their travel and to ensure they could be tested.
He said whether they would be charged was yet to be determined given their age.
SIX CHARGED, VENUE FINED IN COVID CRACKDOWN
Six people have been charged and 11 others were fined during a statewide police crackdown on COVID-19 breaches over the weekend.
A venue in Sydney’s CBD on O’Connell Street, that had previously been issued a warning, was also fined $5000 for failing to provide a COVIDSafe environment for its customers.
Among those charged include a 31-year-old man from Thurgoona near Albury who has been refused bail for fleeing his hotel room in Mascot and travelling to Newcastle.
A 26-year-old woman and her two passengers, a 28-year-old woman and 35-year-old man, were pulled over in Gol Gol, a border town in the state’s far west, and arrested after police allegedly found $64,000 in cash and illicit drugs during a search of the car.
Police allege that the older woman hid in the boot of the car earlier that day to avoid detection at the George Caffey Bridge checkpoint.
Another woman, from Victoria, was granted a transit permit in July to travel directly to Queensland but was found in Surry Hills on Saturday evening allegedly in possession of methamphetamine.
She was charged with resist or hinder police officer in the execution of duty, possess prohibited drug, two counts of possess prescribed restricted substance, supply prohibited drug, and not comply with noticed direction re s 7/8/9 – COVID-19.
SYDNEY GIRLS SCHOOL CLUSTER GROWS
A cluster of coronavirus cases linked to the Tangara School for Girls in Sydney’s north has grown to nine with health authorities warning older students are more likely to spread the virus.
Fourteen people in NSW were diagnosed with COVID-19 in the 24 hours to 8pm on Sunday.
One was a returned traveller from overseas, one was a person from Victoria, one was locally acquired with no known links and 11 were acquired with links to other confirmed cases.
Three of the new cases today are linked to the existing funerals cluster in Sydney’s west
NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant said there are now nine cases linked to the Tangara School for Girls.
“Five of the (new) cases are linked to the Tangara School for Girls and these cases include four students and a household contact of a previously confirmed case,” she said.
“In total we’ve got nine cases including six students who are associated with the school, including one case previously reported.
“The original source of this cluster remains under investigation and this morning we received two additional cases that were identified as being linked to the school, a teacher and a student.
“The school will be closed until Monday August 24 and the junior campus will close until Tuesday August 11.”
Dr Chant also noted that older students, particularly those in their late teens, are more likely to behave as adults and consequently their risk of transmission may be higher.
“We’ve always said that the older the students are they behave more like adults, we still know and believe that,” she said.
“As you get older, an 18-year-old at school is more like an adult in terms of their characteristics and risks of transmission.
“That’s been known and factored in, and it highlights the fact that we do need to get those messages out, it’s important we have those settings right at schools.
“Also, we know that people interact outside school, there’s often a lot of extra-curricular activities and group settings, at the moment we’re working through all of those settings to look at how the chains of transmission occurred and how it got introduced to Tangara and that’s another line of investigation.”
Bonnyrigg Heights Public School will be non-operational for the day after NSW Health confirmed a positive infection.
Dr Chant said a student attended the school while infectious on Tuesday August, 4,5 and 6.
Students and staff are being asked to self-isolate as health authorities undertake contact tracing and school grounds are cleaned.
A third school, Our Lady of Mercy College in Parramatta, was closed on Monday after two student tested positive.
Kids’ Early Learning Quakers Hill Long Day Care has also closed after a staff member who has since tested positive worked on Monday August 3.
NSW Health has also advised anyone who attended the following locations to be on alert:
•Anyone who attended St Agatha’s church in Pennant Hills on August 5 and 6 must watch out for symptoms after a parishioner tested positive to the virus.
•A staff member at Hornsby Hospital worked one shift while infectious, authorities confirmed. The worker was in the hospital’s emergency department on August 6.
•Bunnings Campbelltown has issued an alert to customers who were at the store between August 4 and 6 after a worker tested positive.
•Anyone who visited PharmaSave Cherrybrook Pharmacy in Appletree Shopping Centre from 4-7pm on Thursday August 6 should self-isolate and get tested if they develop symptoms after an infected pharmacist worked while asymptomatic.
NSW PREMIER WARNS QLD AGAINST SHUTTING ‘BORDER BUBBLE’
Premier Gladys Berejiklian says if the QLD government closes a “border bubble” in Tweed Heads, the Sunshine State will cop a greater economic hit than NSW.
However Ms Berejiklian said she is worried about the “social wellbeing” of border town residents if travel is further restricted.
She has also warned that QLD could see people “with the wrong motives” transit across the border.
“No matter how tough you are at the borders; no border is impenetrable, and even Queensland has seen cases emerge even though they’ve been so called ‘extremely tough on the border’,” Ms Berejiklian said.
NINETEEN DEATHS ON HORROR DAY FOR VICTORIA
Australia has recorded its deadliest day since the coronavirus pandemic began with 19 more Victorian deaths bringing the country’s death toll to 313.
A man in his 50s, a woman in her 60s, two men in their 70s, one man and six women in their 80s and one man and seven women in their 90s are the latest Victorians to die of the disease. Fourteen of the 19 are linked to aged care outbreaks.
Despite the record number of deaths, Victoria recorded its lowest daily increase of cases, 322, since July 28 when 276 people were diagnosed with the virus.
There were 105 new “mystery” cases recorded where there is no known source of infection.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews warned that it was important “not to get ahead of ourselves” as case totals drop.
“It’s always be better to be lower than the previous day, but it is only one day’s data,” Mr Andrews said.
“It is still very early for us to be trying to measure the impacts of stage four, but we’re certainly seeing perhaps some greater stability that is a result of the cumulative impact
of stage three.”
SOCIAL DISTANCING FAILS ANGER AUTHORITIES
Crowds outside a popular CBD restaurant have shown some are still missing the social distance message.
Queues of revellers were packed together as they waited to enter Rockpool Dining Group’s The Argyle restaurant on Saturday night.
Photographs show partygoers were standing less than 1.5m apart and a young woman was seen being brought out on a stretcher.
A Rockpool Dining Group spokeswoman said maintaining social distancing requirements in the street was “an extremely difficult task”.
ARRESTS AT VICTORIAN ANTI-LOCKDOWN RALLY
Protesters who attended an anti-lockdown rally in central Melbourne were arrested on Sunday as Victoria recorded its highest daily death toll with 17 deaths and 394 new COVID-19 cases.
The new deaths bring the beleaguered state’s toll to 210.
Concern is growing about the number of healthcare workers who are becoming infected with 590 staff contracting the virus in the past 14 days.
Six protesters who were arrested by police at a Freedom Day rally in central Melbourne received fines of $1652 each.
Premier Daniel Andrews said he believed most people were doing the right thing.
Originally published as Coronavirus NSW: Teens arrested for COVID breach after Sydney returns
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