Australia COVID LIVE updates 466 new cases of COVID-19 in NSW Victoria has 25 new cases

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Good morning, Nigel Gladstone here to keep you up to date with the latest coronavirus news today.

Last night NSW entered a statewide lockdown at 5pm after recording 466 new cases of COVID-19, as cases spread across the state. Victoria has recorded 25 new locally acquired cases, less than half of them were isolating while infectious.

The major stories from yesterday include:

From Monday, all residents of Greater Sydney will be restricted to their local government area or five kilometres from home for shopping, exercise and outdoor recreation.

NSW Police patrol Bondi Beach on August 14.Credit:Steven Siewert

From Saturday, anyone leaving Greater Sydney will require a permit and people in the LGAs of concern must register their “singles bubble” partner with the government.

On the spot fines for breaking self-isolation rules, lying on a permit or lying to a contact tracer will increase to $5000, while anyone who breaches the two-person exercise or outdoor recreation rule will be fined $3000.

Operation Stay at Home will also deploy the riot squad and 500 extra Australian Defence Force officers, following a request from the police, while 1400 highway patrol officers will enforce COVID compliance at roadblocks across Sydney and regional NSW.

Police Commissioner Mick Fuller said he made no apology for requesting some of the toughest powers in the state’s history. “Please don’t write in and complain to me, we have given ample warnings and cautions,” he said. “It’s all about getting ahead of Delta, not chasing it.”

Read more here.

Easing restrictions for selected suburbs, where COVID-19 cases are falling, would cause fury in western Sydney communities, according to Tony Burke, the federal member for Watson in western Sydney.

Last week Premier Gladys Berejiklian floated the idea that suburbs with lower rates of infection could be freed from some lockdown restrictions when the target of 6 million vaccine shots in NSW were to be reached.

Tony Burke has warned against easing restrictions in selected suburbs.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Mr Burke, Labor’s spokesman for industrial relations and the arts, said the current Sydney outbreak would not have happened if NSW had locked down the eastern suburbs at the outset. He said the “double standard” of lockdown remaining in suburbs with high infection rates would cause outrage if restrictions in more affluent eastern and northern suburbs were eased.

“It would not have happened if they had locked down Bondi, and there is a huge frustration about that,” Mr Burke said on ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday.

“Fury is the word. We (In western Sydney) are the home of essential workers. We don’t have that many people who can do their work at home from a laptop. We have to go out into a whole lot of different parts of Sydney to work, to do essential work, to stack shelves, to drive vehicles, to work on logistics, to work in aged care.”

Self-proclaimed “wellness visionary” Therese Kerr - mother of supermodel export Miranda - has long been a public advocate for the benefits of natural medicine and warned of the impact of chemicals on our bodies.

But since the coronavirus pandemic swept across the world, Kerr’s wellness philosophy has veered into promoting anti-vaccination material on her social media accounts. Just don’t call her an anti-vaxxer. “Please know I am not Anti-Vaccination, I am Pro-Vaccination Safety,” she posted on Facebook last year.

Miranda Kerr with her mother Therese, a self-proclaimed wellness visionary.

Amid the government’s recent push to boost vaccination rates to beat Delta, and speculation employers may be able to mandate vaccines for their workers, Kerr has shared a viral petition for alternate treatment options for COVID-19.

Read more here.

Jennifer is still wrestling with herself over getting her daughter vaccinated against the coronavirus. She herself is allergic to the flu shot, and is worried her daughter may have a similar reaction to the COVID-19 vaccine.

On the other hand, the family lives in Sydney’s south-west, in a local government area of concern in the current outbreak. Her 18-year-old daughter Emma also lives with a learning disability and epilepsy, and is at higher risk of severe disease.

Vaccinations for children is a complex risk benefit analysis, experts say.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

“On that basis, I thought, ‘well, I don’t really have a choice’,” said Jennifer, whose surname has been withheld to protect her and her daughter’s privacy. “You want to do what’s right. Do I know if I’m doing the right thing? No, I’m praying I am, but I really don’t know.”

Read more here.

When Anna Kiriakopoulos booked a winter getaway to the Gold Coast she didn’t know what the next day would involve, let alone the next six weeks.

But as Victoria was plunged into its fourth lockdown on her May 28 departure date, the Fitzroy North resident discovered she was ineligible for a refund because she hadn’t cancelled 45 days beforehand.

Anna Kiriakopoulos is trying to recoup $800 that she outlaid for an ill-fated trip to the Gold Coast in MayCredit:Joe Armao

“Had we planned to go a day earlier, things would have been different,” she said. “How are you meant to predict a lockdown six weeks in advance?”

Ms Kiriakopoulos and her partner, Andrew, have spent more than two months trying to get a refund for their ill-fated holiday but have had no luck.

Read more here.

The 10-kilometre movement radius in Greater Sydney will be cut to five kilometres after NSW recorded 466 new local cases and four deaths on Saturday, with Premier Gladys Berejiklian describing the situation as “extremely concerning”.

The news came just hours before it was announced â€" via social media and press release â€" that the entire state would be locked down for at least seven days.

Fines increased and movement restricted to 5km after 466 new cases and four more deaths. Credit:Rhett Wyman

Deputy Premier John Barilaro took to Twitter on Saturday afternoon to say new stay-at-home orders would be introduced for all of regional NSW to “minimise movement and protect our communities from the evolving COVID situation in Sydney”.

He had earlier used an online call to tell regional NSW MPs that the entire state would be in lockdown for at least seven days, an MP unauthorised to speak on the issue told the Herald.

Read more here.

A leading Victorian economist says Australia’s closed borders have saved the state from mass unemployment during the COVID-19 downturns, with the economy instead experiencing a growing shortage of workers.

But experts warn that the tight labour market will not lead to a bonanza of well-paid jobs. There is no sign of wages rising despite the increased scarcity of workers as job vacancies sit well above their pre-pandemic level.

The latest figures show that about 150,000 Victorians are out of work. Credit:Tamara Voninski

RMIT public policy professor David Hayward has analysed unemployment and immigration data for the whole pandemic period and says the closed international borders and the reversal of interstate migration have kept nearly 170,000 potential employees out of Victoria’s labour force.

Read more here.

There are lockdowns, and then there are lockdowns. For residents of Sydney’s east, north and south, where restrictions are not so tough, children tired out by Zoom lessons or adults keen to escape their lounge rooms have been able to stay within 10 kilometres of home and go on a coastal walk, hike in a national park, or paddle along a harbour beach. Many of them have a backyard, a room in which they can find solitude, and an internet connection that can support a different streaming channel for each member of the family.

Of the five council areas with the lowest median household incomes in Greater Sydney, four are now classified “areas of concern” and are under the most harsh and economically damaging lockdown restrictions.Credit:Kate Geraghty

It’s a different story in Campsie, the south-west Sydney suburb that last week became the epicentre of the COVID-19 outbreak. There, three generations live in two-bedroom apartments, children play in driveways, and there’s no such thing as a quiet place to work or study.

The five-kilometre exercise radius, which has now been extended to Greater Sydney as of tomorrow, allows a masked walk to Wiley Park, a greenish patch surrounded by arterial roads which, in recent weeks, has been circled by police helicopters telling everyone to go home.

Read more here.

Victoria has recorded 25 new local coronavirus cases on Sunday, as the state’s list of exposure sites climbs to almost 500 and concerns grow about virus spread in Melbourne’s northern suburbs.

Just 12 of the locally acquired cases were in quarantine for their entire infectious period. Twenty-one of the new cases are linked to the current outbreak, the health department confirmed.

Victoria has recorded 25 new local coronavirus cases on Sunday, as the state’s list of exposure sites climbs to almost 500 and concerns grow about virus spread in Melbourne’s northern suburbs.

Just 12 of the locally acquired cases were in quarantine for their entire infectious period. Twenty-one of the new cases are linked to the current outbreak, the health department confirmed.

Read more here.

Victoria is creeping ever closer to having 500 potential COVID-19 exposure sites listed across the state, with additional tier-2 sites added in the northern Melbourne suburbs of Glenroy, Meadow Heights and Broadmeadows late last night.

Coles Glenroy was visited by a COVID-positive person on August 11 between 5.42pm and 6.21pm, and again on August 13 between 3pm and 3.40pm.

The South Melbourne Market is listed on recent COVID-19 exposure sites in Victoria.Credit:PICTURE : PENNY STEPHENS

Meadow Heights shopping centre has been listed as tier-2 site between 1pm and 1.45pm on August 7, while Kmart in Broadmeadows Central was attended by a positive case on August 4 between 4pm and 4.45pm.

Anyone who has visited one of these tier-2 exposure sites must immediately get tested and isolate until they receive a negative result.

More than 70 per cent of the cases announced on Saturday morning were connected to the Glenroy cluster, stoking “growing concerns” for health authorities, Health Minister Martin Foley said.
Additional tier-1 and tier-2 sites were added last night across the suburbs of Roxburgh Park, Weir Views, Richmond, Reservoir, Caroline Springs and Balaclava, taking the total number of sites to 493. The latest list of exposure sites can be viewed on the health department’s website.

Western Australia Premier Mark McGowan has blamed the delay in locking down NSW for the state’s current predicament and has little intention of reopening his state’s border before the end of the year.

“NSW delayed putting in place measures that work,” Mr McGowan told Sky News on Sunday.

“Clearly that was a mistake. They need to lock down properly and put in roadblocks around Sydney.”

WA Premier Mark McGowanCredit:Peter de Kruijff

He also suggested the Commonwealth provide more defence forces to assist with compliance.
Sydney’s lockdown began on June 26, 10 days after the first local cases of the Delta variant of COVID-19 were reported.

Mr McGowan said NSW should be trying to return to COVID zero.

“Melbourne did it last year,” Mr McGowan said. “We did it a few months ago and Adelaide recently too. Victoria went through hell last year and the Andrews Government did what it took.”

Asked if Western Australia would retain its hard border as vaccination rates rose, Mr McGowan said: “We retain that right. I would prefer not to. But the best answer for the foreseeable future until the end of the year is we are going to have to have a strong border in place. We can’t run the risk of it infiltrating into WA again.”

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