No new local cases, Victoria tightens borders as nation battles Covid outbreaks
Police patrols will be beefed up in Victoria’s border towns, with the air wing and booze buses called in to protect the state from Covid.
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This article was published on Monday, June 28. Click here for the latest rolling coverage of Australia’s growing Covid outbreak.
Police will ramp up patrols along six key border crossing zones in a bid to protect Victoria from NSW’s worsening outbreak.
Police will set up around Swan Hill, Echuca, Yarrawonga, Wodonga and Cann River, while the Victoria Police air wing will be brought in to monitor the situation from above.
Booze buses have also been deployed to support mobile enforcement south of the border in Bairnsdale, Echuca and Wodonga.
Chief Commissioner Shane Patton said the operation involved a “highly visible, mobile, prevention, detection and enforcement presence”.
“My message is clear — anyone who deliberately, blatantly or obviously breaches Chief Health Officer directions can expect to receive an on-the-spot fine of almost $5000 and will be turned away at the border,” he said.
Health minister Martin Foley confirmed a formal request had been made for Australian Defence Force help in protecting the state’s border.
“Nothing describes the seriousness that the nation is more than those extents of border restrictions and permits,” he said.
“The hard-fought gains Victorians have made in the last few weeks to run our outbreak to ground are too precious - and we’ll devote all our resources to keeping our state safe as the situation evolves across Australia.
“We cannot take this invisible threat lightly, and we cannot take chances with the Delta variant, in particular, spreading across our state.”
Since Friday June 25, more than 260 Victoria Police officers have monitored mobile border zone checks and conducted patrols.
More than 2000 checks have been conducted, with 53 warnings issued, mostly to people forced to turn around after coming from a red zone.
“We’ve given ample warning, we’ve given ample education, now is the time for enforcement,” Commissioner Patton said.
Since the first red zone came into effect on June 23, the Department of Health has processed more than 5000 red zone permits for returning Victorians and more than 21,000 orange zone permits.
Thirty-eight people coming from a red zone, and 31 per cent of those returning from an orange zone, have tested negative.
Mr Weimar urge people to reconsider travel plans for the school holidays.
“This is a fluid situation. It is a day by day proposition ... anybody travelling interstate should know that this may well change at short notice. It is a challenging time for people to travel with confidence,” he said.
VICTORIANS STRANDED IN NT
Victorian holiday makers have found themselves stranded in Northern Territory hotel rooms after Victoria declared greater Darwin a red zone from 8pm on Sunday.
Travellers must now decide to either stay in Darwin and endure lockdown as they wait for the zone to be reclassified or return to Victoria and quarantine for 14 days.
South Gippsland mum Rebecca Cooke said her family were excited to be getting away for the school holidays and flew up in anticipation on Thursday.
“It was so weird walking back from the (Darwin) waterfront yesterday after we found out about the lockdown,” Ms Cooke said.
“We literally had an hour to respond and get back to the hotel.”
She said they are “pretty lucky” to be staying in a small townhouse but are unable to use any of the hotel’s facilities.
The family is now due to fly back to Victoria on Wednesday night and have chosen to cop the two weeks of quarantine.
“It’s a pretty frustrating situation but what can you do? We just have to roll with the punches and see what happens.”
Glenroy resident Ann Douglas was thrilled to be travelling to NT solo after having four holidays put on hold.
She was due to start a six-day guided tour of the Top End with AAT Kings at 2pm on Monday but by 2.15pm, it had been cancelled.
“My travel agent is working on two scenarios,” Ms Douglas said.
“Lockdown ends and I can spend a few days up here doing some day trips or lockdown gets extended and I fly home to 14 days (of) self-quarantine.”
SLOW JAB ROLLOUT PLUNGED AUSTRALIA IN DANGER
Leading epidemiologists have warned that the federal government’s “conservative approach” to the vaccine rollout has left the Australian public open to the potential for “out-of-control outbreaks”.
University of South Australia chair of biostatistics Adrian Esterman has warned that Australia is currently in a “very dangerous situation”.
“The issue is that New South Wales has taken a suppression approach, relying on contact tracers instead of lockdowns (to eradicate the virus),” he said.
“The state then exported (the virus) to other states and territories. It’s not fair — they left it too late to go into lockdown.”
Read the full article here.
CONCERNS OVER NATIONAL OUTBREAK
Authorities are worried Australia is on the precipice of a new wave of Covid-19 as states and territories battle outbreaks on a host of fronts, calling for snap lockdowns, border closures and greater urgency in the vaccine rollout.
It’s understood chief health officers from across the country are deeply concerned Australia is in one of the worst positions it’s been in since the pandemic began, with contact tracing now spreading across state lines and with cases potentially already in the community undetected.
There have been internal discussions around whether a national approach may soon be needed, it can be revealed.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison will call an urgent meeting of national cabinet after NSW recorded a huge spike in Covid cases, and outbreaks are ranging nationwide.
The Herald Sun believes he will pressure state leaders to make the Covid-19 vaccination compulsory for workers in aged-care homes.
Government sources told The Australian that the national security committee of the federal cabinet will also meet on Monday to consider the outbreaks.
Mr Morrison wants to meet with premiers and chief ministers urgently as lockdowns, tougher restrictions, and border closures spread across the country.
The Prime Minister’s national security committee is also meeting on Monday morning to consider other measures to deal with the unfolding virus chaos.
Meanwhile, Victoria has gone two consecutive days without recording a new local case, with just two new cases recorded in hotel quarantine overnight. But there was a drop in tests, with 17,617 results received.
Covid testing commander Jereon Weimar said 17 of Victoria’s active cases were local infections.
All but one resident at the Oakleigh apartment block where an infected case lives have returned a negative test.
One person linked to the Sandringham cluster has refused to get a test.
The person will remain in isolation and is considered to be a low risk, Covid commander Jeroen Weimar said.
He said: “We can’t force people to take PCR tests”.
NORTHERN TERRITORY LOCKDOWN EXTENDED AFTER NEW CASE
The Northern Territory’s lockdown has been extended after one new infection, confirmed to be the Delta strain, was recorded overnight.
The Darwin, Palmerston and Litchfield areas will now remain in lockdown until 1pm on Friday.
Chief Minister Michael Gunner said the new case was a man in his 50s who left the mine site on June 25 and was a close contact of an earlier case.
He confirmed the new case was from the Delta variant circulating in NSW.
The man has been in isolation at Howard Springs since the night of June 26.
Mr Gunner said the extension was “absolutely necessary” to stop further spreading.
“We are not out of the woods yet, not by a long way,” he said.
“The Northern Territory is now facing its biggest threat since the Covid crisis began.”
Read the full story here.
VICTORIA SLAMS MORE BORDERS SHUT
Victoria slammed its border shut to Darwin and more closures are on the cards as coronavirus outbreaks emerge or worsen in four Australian states and territories.
Local authorities were on high alert on Sunday night, with an extra 200 uniformed police sent to the Victoria-NSW border to keep potentially infectious Sydneysiders out of the state.
In Victoria, contract tracers on Sunday night were scrambling to track passengers from a Melbourne-bound flight on Friday with an infected flight attendant.
Queensland recorded two locally acquired Covid-19 cases on Monday and will reintroduce the mandatory wearing of masks.
One of the cases is the female miner which was revealed on Sunday and the other is linked to the Portuguese restaurant and tested positive while in quarantine.
The mask mandate is one step away from widespread, snap lockdowns, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said.
“We are on the verge but we are monitoring very closely over the next 24 hours – will we see any further community outbreaks in Queensland,” she said.
Meanwhile, NSW recorded 18 cases of Covid-19. All but one infection have been linked.
The state recorded 30 new cases on Sunday.
It comes after Greater Darwin was on Sunday plunged into a two-day lockdown, and Perth and Brisbane were hit with more restrictions amid new local infections.
“We’re monitoring this situation in real time … it’s absolutely dynamic,” Acting Premier James Merlino said.
Victorian crisis cabinet members met to discuss taking further border action, which would throw school holiday travel plans into more turmoil.
Authorities on Sunday declared greater Darwin, covering Darwin, Palmerston and Litchfield, a red zone after four new cases linked to a worker at Granites gold mine, 550km northwest of Alice Springs.
The worker is believed to have caught the virus in a Queensland quarantine hotel.
Victorian residents will need a permit and to isolate for two weeks to return from Darwin, while non-residents will be banned.
Sydneysiders, now in lockdown, are also banned from the state.
On Sunday night, Victorian authorities announced Greater Brisbane and Perth would become orange zones from 1am Monday.
People who have been in orange zones must obtain a permit to enter Victoria, get tested within 72 hours of arrival, and stay isolated until they receive a negative result.
Health Minister Martin Foley said: “This is the first time that Victoria has had orange and red zones in most Australian states and territories”.
“Nothing describes the seriousness that the nation is facing more than those extents of border restrictions and permit applications that Victoria has in place,” he said.
WA reinstated stage 1 restrictions and turned fans away from the Eagles and Bulldogs clash at Optus Stadium after a woman, infected in Sydney, and her husband tested positive.
One new case of Covid-19 was recorded in WA on Monday, while three schools remained closed for deep cleaning.
Premier Mark McGowan said the 32-year-old woman who had attended the Mobius Health and Performance gym in Joondalup had “only minimal contact” with case 1022 — a 51-year-old woman who caught the virus from the Lyfe Cafe in Bondi.
“Understandably, this is a concerning development,” Mr McGowan said on Monday.
“WA Health are currently collecting and getting in touch with case 1023’s contacts.”
Restrictions will remain in place in the Perth and Peel regions for at least three days.
Restrictions were also increased in Brisbane, where another two cases of community transmission emerged on Monday.
Three cases were announced on Sunday, including a female worker at the Granites mine, who had flown to the Sunshine Coast.
Victoria’s Covid-19 commander Jeroen Weimar said the current situation highlighted the risk of people moving freely around the country.
“This will be a challenging time to travel over the coming days and weeks, and I would advise caution to anybody heading interstate,” he said.
“We’d certainly encourage any Victorian, please do not travel to New South Wales at this time. It is an unpredictable situation.”
No new local cases emerged in Victoria on Sunday, but authorities are still trying to chase down any potential transmission linked to the Sandringham dry cleaners.
Of the 61 identified close contacts, 53 tested negative, as did 49 residents of the Oakleigh apartment complex, where the man who caught the virus in Sydney lives.
Mr Weimar said more work needed to be done, but he was confident “we’ve got a pretty good scope on this”.
“I think this really is a case study in terms of how you’d want to respond to these Delta strains that are emerging,” he said.
Contact tracers on Sunday were also scrambling to contact 128 people who caught a plane with an infectious flight attendant.
Mr Weimar said he had serious concerns about the health and safety of those on-board Virgin flight VF334, which flew to Melbourne from Brisbane on Friday afternoon.
Three people are isolating in Victoria after having been at the Granites gold mine in the Tanami Desert.
A miner tested positive in regional NSW, indicating transmission occurred at the mine, prompting a nationwide search to trace a further 900 employees.
MELBOURNE HOTEL EXPOSED TO VIRUS
A hotel in Melbourne’s Southbank has been exposed to coronavirus, with the positive case attending the site multiple times across two days.
The Department of Health added the Holiday Inn Express Southbank Melbourne as an infection hot spot on Sunday night.
Anyone who attended the City Rd site on Saturday, June 26 between 12am and 6.45am must monitor for symptoms and if symptoms developed immediately get tested and isolate until a negative result was received.
Health authorities also issued other tier two and three warnings for the hotel:
- Friday, June 25 between 6pm and 11.59pm; Tier 3.
- Friday, June 25 between 6.15pm and 11.59pm; Tier 2 – warning for the 10th floor.
- Saturday, June 26 between 12am and 6.45am; Tier 2 – warning for the 10th floor.
- Saturday, June 26 between 6am and 6.45am; Tier 2 – warning for the ground floor lobby and the great room bar and restaurant.
- Saturday, June 26 between 6pm and 6.45pm; Tier 2 – warning for the ground floor lobby and the great room bar and restaurant.
Anyone who visited a tier two exposure site must urgently get a Covid-19 test and isolate until they received a negative result.
The tier three advice was to monitor for symptoms and if symptoms developed to immediately get tested and isolate until a negative result was received.
VIRUS EXPERTS CALL FOR CALM
The latest coronavirus outbreak is concerning, according to some of the country’s leading epidemiologists, but they say there is no need to sound the alarm just yet.
Peter Collington, an infectious diseases physician and professor at ANU Medical School, has confidence in the state governments’ responses so far, despite forecasting an increase in cases over the coming days.
“My view of New South Wales is the contact tracers have done a good job, so we will see an increase in numbers but I’m not expecting it to skyrocket out of control,” he said.
“That is similar for Darwin, and other places as well, so far the virus is behaving like you expect.”
Professor Collington warned the country remains vulnerable as only a small amount of the population has been vaccinated against COVID-19.
“For the rest of winter, until October, we will have to take precautions,” he said.
“We are going to have to look at more restrictions, we have a potential problem until we have a large amount of adults vaccinated.”
He said if the current outbreaks are not contained over the next week, health authorities must also rethink their vaccine strategy.
“If we find out the outbreak is not going to be controlled… we should give more people the option to get the Astrazeneca vaccine if they are informed and aware of the risks.”
The need for Australia to speed up its vaccination roll-out as a matter of urgency is a view shared by other epidemiologists, including Professor Catherine Bennett, who said governments cannot continue to rely on lockdowns to contain the spread of COVID-19.
“If we are going to have to go into lockdown every time, that is going to be unworkable, we have to get vaccinated so we don’t have to keep chasing down every case,” Deakin’s Chair in Epidemiology said.
Professor Bennett is comfortable with Victoria’s current policy settings for now, but said authorities will have to monitor the situation “day by day”.
She is more worried about a potential community outbreak in the sunshine state.
“I do think the case documentation we have in Victoria is really reassuring,” she said.
“But I am more concerned in a strange way about Queensland, it worries me that contact tracers missed the close contacts of positive cases.”
The outbreak around the country, she added, “is just showing how difficult things are going to continue to be with the current variant…there is always going to be a challenge with the contact tracing.”
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