Australia COVID LIVE updates 415 new cases of COVID-19 in NSW Victoria has 25 new cases

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One of Victoria’s leading epidemiologists has backed the decision to send more than half of the million Pfizer vaccine doses obtained from Poland to the worst affected areas of Sydney’s outbreak.

Catherine Bennett, Chair of Epidemiology at Deakin University, says it is “absolutely” the right approach to get the majority of the jabs to the areas of greatest need, saying the whole country should be supporting NSW in trying to control its outbreak.

“We can’t contain this to NSW, just because of the sheer number of infections, it gets harder and harder to manage and that’s why it’s pushing out to regional NSW and that’s why the whole country has to focus on trying to support NSW however we can,” Professor Bennett told The Age.

Opposition leader Michael O’Brien has slammed Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews as “arrogant” for not laying out a plan to get children back to school.

When Andrews was asked on Sunday about how he planned to keep schools open, he said thousands of students, and their parents, moving around in the community would spread the virus. Melbourne’s latest outbreak was seeded through Al-Taqwa College in Melbourne’s western suburbs.

Opposition Leader Michael O’Brien. Credit:Justin McManus

“I know that having kids at home is not fun, particularly if you’re working from home as well and all of that, it’s very stressful, very challenging,” Mr Andrews said.

“But we’ll take care of every child, every student ... the tutor program we put in place - there are more than 5000 of these tutors working with kids one on one and in small groups to catch everyone up and make sure that everybody is exactly where they would have been if this global event hadn’t happened. They’re going a great job, and if they have to work longer, then of course they will be.”

He dismissed the pposition’s calls for rapid antigen testing in schools, saying they had not yet been approved by the Therapeutic and Goods Administration and described it as a “political stunt”.

However, Mr O’Brien said leading epidemiologists Tony Blakely, Sharon Lewin and Mary-Louise McLaws have all been calling on governments to begin using rapid antigen tests, as part of a suite of measures, to keep COVID-19 out of the community.

“The premier needs to stop being arrogant,” Mr O’Brien said.

“If he wants to dismiss my plan, that’s one thing, but he doesn’t have a plan to reopen schools, he doesn’t have a plan to get our major events back, he doesn’t have a plan to get us out of lockdown.

“We’re at least putting up ideas that are supported by leading public health experts. And frankly, it’s about time the Premier stopped being arrogant, stopped dismissing every idea that he didn’t come up with, and started listening and started acting.”

It’s been a busy day with NSW reporting 415 new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 and four deaths. Victoria recorded 25 new cases, there were two more local cases in the ACT while Queensland had no new local infections.

One million extra doses of the Pfizer vaccine will start landing in Australia tonight from Poland. The first 530,000 shots will be made available to 20 to 39-year-olds in Sydney suburbs with the highest infection rates.

People enjoying the weather at Balmoral beach on Sunday. Credit:James Alcock

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said today that it’s “not possible to eliminate” the Delta strain of COVID-19 completely and we “have to learn to live with it”.

NSW Police will launch Operation Stay At Home from midnight tonight with a “significant boost” to public health order enforcement across the state with 1400 highway patrol officers dedicated to COVID-19 compliance operations on the state’s roads. There will also be 500 Australian Defence Force troops, in addition to the 300 already deployed, to assist with compliance checks and patrols.

The Victorian premier has not ruled out an extension of the lockdown, saying mystery cases and rising case numbers are becoming “concerning” after he lambasted a purported ‘sip and stroll’ event on Saturday across the suburb of Richmond in Melbourne’s inner east.

Rapid antigen testing will be trialled in 50 aged care facilities in Sydney, Health minister Greg Hunt said.

The nation’s human rights watchdog has urged state and federal governments not to impose vaccine passports unless other restrictions are removed at the same time, warning they had the potential to discriminate against vulnerable Australians.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has opened the door to the use of vaccine certificates domestically on the basis it will encourage more Australians to get vaccinated faster under national cabinet’s planned four-phase reopening of the country, but stressed it would have to be imposed by the states.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has suggested vaccine certificates are a matter for the states.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

A growing number of Coalition MPs are speaking out against the use of vaccine certificates for domestic travel and attendance at venues and events, with at least two threatening to cross the floor if the government brings on legislation.

Read more here.

Crowds enjoying the fine weather and getting out to exercise at Balmoral Beach in Middle Harbour.Credit:Photo: James Alcock

It’s a beautiful day in Sydney today. Herald photographer James Alcock headed to Balmoral beach on Sydney’s north shore.

NSW Police patrol Balmoral BeachCredit:James Alcock

Crowds enjoying the sun at Balmoral beach. Credit:James Alcock

People enjoying the weather at Balmoral beach.Credit:James Alcock

The restrictions allowing Sydneysiders to move within 10 kilometres of their home have been cut to five kilometres.

NSW Police will ramp up its presence in areas of concern from Sunday, including deploying riot squads and enhancing random checkpoints at key roads.

Fines for breaching health orders will be increased from $1000 to $5000. Ms Berejiklian said police would be able to impose the harsher fines from Saturday.

The new five-kilometre movement rule will come into effect for Sydneysiders on Monday.

Read more here.

After it was revealed New South Wales would receive half of the one million new Pfizer vaccines given to Australia by Poland, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews had NSW had a “far greater” need than his state.

Of the additional doses, Victoria will be receiving 175,500 doses, the Prime Minister’s Office has confirmed.

Hundreds of Year 12 students queue for their first dose of the Pfizer vaccine at Qudos Bank Arena.Credit:James Brickwood

Mr Andrews said while Victoria was in the middle of a “concerning” outbreak, he would not “quibble” about New South Wales getting a bigger slice of those jabs.

“They have to be given more vaccine in New South Wales because nothing else they’re doing is working,” he said.

“They’re gonna have to vaccinate their way out of this, and we wish them well in doing that.

“I’m not for a moment quibbling or in any way being difficult about them getting more than us, they needed more than us, frankly. That’s not to say we don’t have need, but their need is far greater at the moment and the only thing that’s going to work for them.”

NSW has reported 415 cases of COVID-19 and four deaths on Sunday, taking the state’s death toll from the pandemic past 100.

Three women; one in her 50s, another in her 70s, one in her 80s, and a man in his 80s died in the reporting period.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian providing an update on COVID-19. 15th August 2021. Credit:Photo: Edwina Pickles

The number of cases linked to the outbreak which began on June 16 is 7745 and the number of deaths in that time is 48. Since the pandemic began last year, 104 lives have been lost in the state.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian said among the new cases at least 35 were infectious in the community but the number would grow as investigations continued into 273 cases whose isolation status is unknown. There were 126,790 tests in the latest reporting period.

Read more here.

Washington: The number of children hospitalised with COVID-19 in the United States hit a record high of just over 1900, as hospitals across the nation’s south were stretched to capacity fighting outbreaks caused by the highly transmissible Delta variant.

The Delta variant, which is rapidly spreading among mostly the unvaccinated portion of the US population, has caused hospitalisations to spike in recent weeks, driving up the number of paediatric hospitalisations to 1902 on Saturday (US time), according to data from the US Department of Health and Human Services.

Children listen to their teacher during their first day of transitional kindergarten at Tustin Ranch Elementary School in California.Credit:AP

Children currently make up about 24 per cent of the nation’s COVID-19 hospitalisations. Kids under 12 are not eligible to receive the vaccine, leaving them more vulnerable to infection from the new, highly transmissible variant.

Read more here.

Children and young people continue to fuel Victoria’s current outbreak according to health authorities, with positive cases often having lots of social contacts.

COVID-19 response commander Jeroen Weimar said there are currently 44 children under 10 infected with COVID-19 in Victoria, and 39 youths aged between 10 and 19 with the virus.
There are 65 people between 20 and 40 years of age who have COVID-19.

“We’re dealing primarily with people in their 20s, 30s and 40s, they’re quite an active group, lots of social contacts, lots of clubs and lots of exposure sites,” Mr Weimar said.

Jeroen Weimar, the Victorian COVID-19 commander, addresses the mediaCredit:Justin McManus

“We’ve got essentially 83 people under the age of 19 who are positive with COVID. That’s almost half the entire outbreak. It’s not happening by accident, it’s happening because people are getting together.

“The (COVID-19 positive) teacher we found worked very closely with a whole bunch of school children in a very big and busy school.

“Those children take it home to their families and then jumps into other children into other schools.”

He said while we “all want to get schools back”, with many active cases among school communities they had to first wait for community transmission to be snuffed out.

No children infected with COVID-19 in Victoria are seriously ill, with one child having been hospitalised in a stable condition earlier in the outbreak.

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