Sydney’s northern beaches cluster: Battle to beat the Covid Grinch

Next two days to determine Sydney’s Christmas plans as authorities race to stop spread of northern beaches cluster.

People arriving from Sydney are greeted by health authorities at Brisbane Airport on Sunday. Picture: Steve Pohlner

Sydneysiders face an anxious two-day wait to learn if Christmas plans will be cancelled as NSW health authorities race to stop the spread of the coronavirus cluster on the city’s northern beaches.

As tests revealed 30 new cases, Gladys Berejiklian warned of stricter restrictions, including on family gatherings, by Wednesday if case numbers kept rising.

On Sunday the NSW Premier imposed new stay-at-home orders for residents of Sydney’s northern beaches, and directions for the rest of the city to defer non-essential travel. Ms Berejiklian said there was no evidence “of massive seeding outside the northern beaches community”.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian in Sydney on Sunday. Picture: Bianca De Marchi

Health authorities will on Wednesday morning provide advice about whether the new restrictions, including a limit of 10 visitors to a home, are working. However senior government sources are confident they will not have to tighten restrictions further, indicating they believe the northern beaches cluster does not represent a Victorian-style crisis.

Every state and territory has now effectively barred five million Sydneysiders, despite the majority of the 30 new COVID-19 cases detailed on Sunday being linked to the northern beaches cluster, centred around the wealthy beachside suburb of ­Avalon,

The NSW government is privately furious that other states have shut their borders despite Sydney bearing the brunt of returning overseas travellers, from where the northern beaches outbreak originated.

Figures released by the federal government on Sunday showed NSW took almost 89,000 people into hotel quarantine since March 28 and December 18, compared with 29,845 in Queensland, 22,751 in Western Australia and 21,508 in Victoria.

Business groups expressed alarm at what they described as a knee-jerk reaction to state travel bans. Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox said: “The lack of trust between our states and their contact tracing and testing systems is deeply disheartening and destabilising.

“Business now has to assume that state borders will be closed at the first sign of new cases anywhere across the country.

“This will hurt business investment, employment and confidence at a time when we need to do all we can to build them up.”

 

NSW chief health officer Kerry Chant said the government was trying to limit the spread of the virus, which would present “more challenges for us and public health contact tracing alone”.

“And that is why the restrictions have been put in place, to give us that breathing space while we assess it,” she said.

Paul Kelly, the Commonwealth’s acting Chief Medical Officer, defended the restrictions NSW had put in place as “appropriate to (decreasing) mixing and movement”.

“The virus moves with people; if we can limit the moving of people and mixing of people that have moved around, that really helps with decreasing the transmission of the virus,” Professor Kelly said.

NSW health authorities had “just about got it right” he said.

The outbreak has already forced the cancellation of the ­Sydney-Hobart yacht race and Cricket Australia is considering moving the Sydney Test to Brisbane or Melbourne.

The spread of Sydney’s COVID-19 cluster has largely been focused on the northern beaches.

NSW Health on Sunday evening released new details of ­locations where infections might have occurred, including several venues in Manly last weekend, a hair salon in inner-city Paddington and at a Thai restaurant in Crows Nest.

Scott Morrison said the initial data from health authorities was “encouraging in terms of so far not seeing any seeding of the virus in other parts of the city”.

“In the meantime, we’ll take our precautions,” the Prime Minister said.

“As people are coming together at Christmas, it’s a reminder that we can’t be complacent. The virus hasn’t gone anywhere. We still need to be on alert.”

Despite this, states slammed shut their borders to all Sydneysiders. Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, bluntly told the residents of the nation’s largest city to “stay in your state” and gave ­Victorians in NSW an extra 24 hours — until 11.59pm on Monday — to return home or face hotel quarantine.

Mr Andrews said he was concerned that, because the source of the outbreak had not been determined, it had spread wider than the northern beaches.

“I hope that is not the case and we all hope for that,” Mr Andrews said. “But using the precautionary principle and following the advice of public health experts I must assume that that is what is happening up there.”

In Western Australia, which announced restrictions on Saturday, Premier Mark McGowan released health advice that said: “Infectious disease modelling suggests that here is a high likelihood that the outbreak in NSW will continue to expand.”

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk called for a national cabinet meeting if the number of cases in NSW increased, calling it a “critical situation” of “national significance”.

From 1am on Monday Sydney residents were barred from entering Queensland unless they had an exemption. Queenslanders currently in Sydney were given an extra 24 hours to get back over the border, after which they would be tested and required to quarantine at home.

The ban came as positive tests for coronavirus in sewage in Cairns, Townsville and the Gold Coast suggested COVID-19 may already be circulating in Queensland.

NSW residents are being implored to wear masks outside the home and resist panic-buying as the spiralling COVID-19 cluster prompts the resumption of strict social distancing rules.

Ms Berejiklian announced caps on gatherings for Greater Sydney, including no more than 10 visitors at a home at any one time until midnight on Wednesday.

Mr Andrews suggested the restrictions imposed by the NSW Premier were not strict enough.

“The kind of baseline measures we already have in Victoria are stronger than those in NSW,” Mr Andrews noted.

“I’m not going to wait around while they add to their rules.”