That's all from us on the blog tonight. Read through for all of today's virus news.
Live Breaking News: 'Significant reworking' of Sydney singles bubble
Greater Sydney's singles bubble will undergo a "significant reworking" in a bid to strengthen enforcement of mobility rules across the virus-stricken city.
The NSW Government will announce a "significant reworking" of its singles bubble across Greater Sydney, in a bid to strengthen enforcement of mobility rules across the virus-stricken city.
Police presented their recommendations at a state crisis cabinet meeting this afternoon, with the crack down on singles among changes expected to be announced tomorrow by Premier Gladys Berejiklian.
Banning people from going to their second residences, such as a beach house, and deploying more ADF personnel to help police the new orders are also expected to come into play.
First reported by The Australian, single residents will be forced to register their companion in Service NSW – which will be accessible to police officers conducting checks – and reside within a 10 kilometre radius of their bubble buddy.
Police Minister David Elliott and NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller reportedly sought to restrict the bubble to five kilometres, but the suggestion was resisted by Health Minister Brad Hazzard and the Department of Premier and Cabinet.
Under the current restrictions, Sydneysiders are permitted to have a "bubble" with a friend, but are also technically permitted visits to intimate partners. This rule is expected to be scrapped, meaning residents will only be able to have one visitor.
Follow below for more updates. You can find yesterday's blog here. Head here for Victoria's covid updates.
Updates
Signing off
As well as a crackdown on the singles bubble, Greater Sydney residents will now require a permit to leave the region.
This means that those heading from a locked-down area to, for example, their holiday house will no longer be permitted to do so except under special circumstances (like performing maintenance). In that event, only one person will be allowed to attend.
Anyone who needs to isolate while awaiting Covid-19 test results will also receive a special payment from Monday of $320, the ABC reports, similar to a scheme in Victoria last year where people were given $450.
The NSW Government will announce a "significant reworking" of its singles bubble across Greater Sydney, The Australian reports, in a bid to strengthen enforcement of mobility rules across the virus-stricken city.
Police presented their recommendations at a state crisis cabinet meeting this afternoon, with the crack down on singles among changes expected to be announced tomorrow by Premier Gladys Berejiklian.
Banning people from going to their second residences, such as a beach house, and deploying more ADF personnel to help police the new orders are also expected to come into play.
According to The Australian, single residents will be forced to register their companion in Service NSW – which will be accessible to police officers conducting checks – and reside within a 10 kilometre radius of their bubble buddy.
Police Minister David Elliott and NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller reportedly sought to restrict the bubble to five kilometres, but the suggestion was resisted by Health Minister Brad Hazzard and the Department of Premier and Cabinet.
Under the current restrictions, Sydneysiders are permitted to have a "bubble" with a friend, but are also technically permitted visits to intimate partners. This rule is expected to be scrapped, meaning residents will only be able to have one visitor.
The ABC reports that the measures will only apply to residents in Greater Sydney's 12 LGAs of concern: Bayside, Blacktown, Burwood, Campbelltown, Canterbury-Bankstown, Cumberland, Fairfield, Georges River, Liverpool, Parramatta, Strathfield and parts of Penrith.
Both Aussie openers in the sheds
I missed this one earlier, but worth pointing out – Scott Morrison said he "welcomes" Western Australia's requirement that visitors from NSW be vaccinated before entering the state.
Asked if other states should consider it, the PM said "I do welcome the requirements for vaccination".
"This is for people who are otherwise getting an exemption to come into Western Australia, and the Premier has added that is not unlike the sort of things we have been talking about for some time, where people are vaccinated, and an exemption being given on public health grounds," he added.
"So I think that is really consistent with what the national plan is seeking to achieve, and as I said last week, all Premiers and Chief Ministers agreed to that."
Willey gets another
One in four eligible Australians are now fully vaccinated with the Covid-19 jab.
This is compared to about 11.6 per cent of Aussies last month (which means about 14 per cent have been vaccinated over the last four weeks). NSW is almost at 50 per cent of its first doses, while in the ACT and Tasmania they've now gone above 50 per cent.
"Yesterday 270,000 plus vaccinations in one day. Over 270,000 vaccinations in one day. It is equivalent in per capita terms to the fourth best day they had in the UK ever for their program," the PM said.
"So the vaccination rates now being achieved under operation COVID shield right across the country is now hitting those world-class marks that is necessary to get Australia where we want to get to.
"One million doses in just four days. That is an extraordinarily extraordinary effort Australians."
Chief medical officer Professor Paul Kelly is speaking now, and has repeated the sentiment that Australia "is clearly [in] our third wave".
Queensland's outbreak is now "definitely under control", while the Victorian outbreak is "coming under control".
In NSW, case numbers are still quite high, he said. But the high number of vulnerable people who are vaccinated has saved us from the "terrible death rate" we saw last year.
"Because of the success rate of vaccination, the terrible death rate has not been replicated this year, in terms of deaths," he said.
"That is mostly because our oldest population, including those in age get are largely protected by vaccination so a very important point."
A fresh custody inmate at Bathurst Correctional Centre has tested positive for Covid-19.
The prison remains under precautionary lockdown after a 27-year-old man who entered the centre last Saturday, August 7 returned a positive test result on Wednesday, August 11 (by which time he had been released on bail and travelled home to Walgett).
In a statement this afternoon, a Corrective Services NSW spokeswoman said that the latest case, a 29-year-old man, arrived at the centre around 11am on Wednesday, August 11 and was subject to the existing strict Covid-19 protocols for fresh receptions.
"He has been in a single cell since arriving at the centre," the spokeswoman said in a statement.
"Inmates are tested for Covid-19 when they arrive in custody as a precaution. It was this sentinel test that determined he was positive.
"The CNSW Covid Command Post has been working with staff to identify anyone who has had contact with the inmate.
"Contact tracing has commenced for any impacted staff, who will be directed to go for immediate Covid-19 testing and await further advice."
He is not believed to be linked to the earlier case.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian has been asked whether extra freedoms for vaccinated people, such as going to restaurants and bars, are realistic given today's spike in cases.
Ms Berejiklian has said the state will need to reach a 70 per cent vaccination rate before it can start reopening, though it has previously been hinted that fully vaccinated residents might be given extra freedoms before then.
"I want to make very clear that what we want to achieve in September and October is provide some opportunities for people to have an extra thing they can do, which they currently can’t do today. I don’t want to give the impression that it will be freedom all round,” Ms Berejiklian said.
"It will not be freedom all round until it is 70 per cent double doses, at least, and 80 per cent is when we learn to live with covid.
"Having said that, I think all of us have got to come to terms with what living with COVID means. Once you get 80 per cent double doses it essentially means whoever isn’t vaccinated, and whoever chooses not to be vaccinated by that point, because by that point everybody will have had the opportunity to be offered the vaccine, living with COVID is very different to what we’re doing now."
Premier Gladys Berejiklian has dismissed claims some people may not realise they are breaking the rules due to confusion around the continually evolving health orders.
Ms Berejiklian said it was "pretty obvious" that the people who are breaking the health orders are using that as an "excuse to do the wrong thing".
"People are saying, oh, I didn't know this was this all that was that. Most of the time that is not true," she said.
"Let's not pretend that people are doing the right thing. People are knowingly doing the wrong thing. And pretending it is because they did not understand.
"We have been very clear about what the rules are. Stay at home unless you absolutely have to leave your house because of authorised work.
"And make sure, if you have symptoms you don't leave the house, you get tested and sang home and isolate was and of course come forward and get vaccinated. People know the basic rules."
England skipper departs
Police will present their recommendations at NSW's crisis meeting this afternoon for how the state should tighten lockdown restrictions.
It comes as part of a push to give authorities more power to crackdown on covid rulebreakers.
"As I said yesterday the Commissioner will be making his recommendations about additional measures this afternoon a crisis cabinet," NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Mick Willing said.
"Police are out there day in and day out in hundreds and thousands of enforcement areas. What is frustrating for us is the small minority that are breaching those orders.
"What we need is 100% compliance across the board with community members, not 90% of 95% but 100% of people complying with public borders."
Some of the major changes expected to be made include a “big rethink” of the single bubble, banning people from going to their second residences, such as a beach house, and deploying more ADF personnel to help police the new orders.
Police hope these changes will be able to close the loopholes some Sydneysiders have been using to escape the lockdown, which has been putting many regional areas of the state at risk.
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