Australia news LIVE NSW records 478 new local COVID-19 cases seven deaths Victoria ACT lockdowns extended NT lockdown to begin
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Opposition leader Michael O’Brien said today was a “very dark day for Victoria†after the Andrews government imposed a night curfew and shut down playgrounds.
“Extending the lockdown was always on the cards,†Mr O’Brien said.
“Reimposing curfews, closing down playgrounds? My goodness, that’s just cruel. This is unnecessary overreach from a government, which is punishing innocent Victorians because they don’t have a plan to tackle the guilty and because they don’t have a plan to tackle COVID.â€
Victorian Liberal leader Michael O’Brien said he could not think of anything more cruel than preventing children playing in outdoor playgrounds. Credit:Scott McNaughton
Mr O’Brien, who questioned the curfew decision during Melbourne’s second wave, called on the government and Chief Health Officer to release the health advice behind the strict measure that will keep people inside between 9pm and 5am.
He said the government admitted during Supreme Court proceedings last year it had no evidence the curfew had an impact on stemming the spread of the virus.
However, Professor Brett Sutton on Monday said the curfew, combined with a suite of measures including mask-wearing, turned the tide and helped bring daily cases down from 700 to zero.
“It is one of a suite of interventions that was very successful last year in Victoria,†Professor Sutton said. “A lot of these things will remain in a space where it can’t be definitive because they’ve been applied with a whole bunch of other interventions.â€
Meanwhile, shadow attorney general Edward O’Donohue deleted a Twitter post after he said, “Melbourne follows Kabul in introducing a curfewâ€, in reference to the Taliban seizing control in Afghanistan.
“We have to understand whether you’re a politician or a plumber or a painter, Victorians are frustrated. Victorians are not doing well at the moment and everyone’s affected and everyone is entitled to express that frustration,†Mr O’Brien said.
When asked if it Mr O’Donohue’s post was appropriate for a senior shadow minister, Mr O’Brien said that was not at the “top of my listâ€.
“If all the ‘I Stand With Dan’ fans got [as] excited about people who can’t go to the playground anymore as they did about a tweet, maybe Twitter would be a better place. I’m not holding my breath,†he said.
Three patients and two staff members at a St George Hospital oncology ward have tested positive to COVID-19.
The first of the patients tested positive on Friday. Both staff members who tested positive are fully vaccinated and two of the patients have had one dose of vaccine. The third patient is unvaccinated.
The patients are in isolation. Credit:Louise Kennerley
“As a precautionary measure the hospital is treating all patients on the ward as close contacts and has implemented additional infection control procedures on the ward to maintain the health and safety of patients,†a spokesperson for South Eastern Sydney Local Health District said.
Patients are in isolation and the ward is closed to new admissions.
The family of one patient who has tested positive at the ward, whose names have been withheld to protect the patient’s identity, said their household had all been vaccinated and limited their movements to protect the patient before they were admitted to hospital.
“We have done all the right things,†the patient’s partner said. “For two weeks [they have] been in there, we haven’t been able to see [them]. For something like this to happen, it’s a kick in the guts.“
Western NSW is facing an “incredibly scary and concerning situation†with nearly 100 active cases of COVID-19 across the local health district, and numbers expected to rise.
Scott McLachlan, chief executive of the Western NSW Local Health District, said on Monday the region’s health resources are stretched with two patients hospitalised as the outbreak, mostly affecting the Indigenous community, grows.
Western NSW is facing a worsening crisis with almost 100 active COVID-19 cases and expectations numbers will grow in coming days. Credit:Kate Geraghty
Mr McLachlan said the majority of 98 active cases in the western NSW local health district are Aboriginal, and about 40 per cent are children aged between 10 and 19.
Dubbo remains the epicentre of the outbreak, with 95 of the region’s active cases (and 32 out of Monday’s 35 new cases), and 49 of the region’s 57 venues of concern located in the town. But in recent days there have been positive cases in Mudgee and Orange; and the first case has now appeared in Bourke.
Read more here.
The murder trial of Northern Territory police officer Zachary Rolfe may be postponed until next week because of Darwin’s three-day COVID-19 lockdown.
The trial was set to begin on Wednesday but the Supreme Court announced in tweet this afternoon that the opening has been deferred for at least one day so the Crown has more time to consider full bench rulings about legal arguments.
“There is the possibility that the trial may have to be further deferred until Monday in response to the COVID lockdown,†it said.
The trial had already been delayed from its scheduled start last month because lawyers in Sydney - in the midst of a major COVID-19 outbreak - had been locked out of the Northern Territory.
Prosecutor Philip Strickland finished his 14 days of quarantine in Howard Springs today.
Constable Rolfe is accused of murdering 19-year-old Kumanjayi Walker in the remote community of Yuendumu in 2019. He is expected to plead not guilty.
Meanwhile, news of the snap lockdown in the tropical COVID-free oasis has landed with a thud. Darwin may be one of the few places left in Australia where shaking hands is still the accepted greeting. People feel safe to crowd the weekend markets and few people, if any, bother with masks.
In the entire pandemic, the Territory has recorded only one case of community transmission. That case, in late June, prompted a snap lockdown. It crushed the spread and life resumed.
Motels, pubs, cafes and tour buses are full with Australians desperate to holiday but unable to travel overseas. If there can be no Bali, there can be Darwin.
The popular Darwin Festival, which was scheduled to run for several more days, has attracted even more people from non-hotspot states.
The latest case is an international arrival who had already completed quarantine in Sydney.
Greater Darwin and Katherine are in lockdown until at least noon on Thursday as health authorities gather more information, including if it is the highly transmissible Delta variant.
“When we don’t know everything, we have to start by assuming the worst,†Chief Minister Michael Gunner said.
The festival has been suspended. So has the pre-polling for local government elections.
After a marathon two-hour Victorian press conference (!) we’ve just been given the breakdown of the 22 new locally acquired coronavirus cases from today. There are eight clusters without a known source.
COVID-19 response commander Jeroen Weimar said there are now 205 active cases. The six people currently in hospital with COVID-19 include two men in their 40s, one woman in her 40s, two women in their 20s and a child who is in ICU, but Mr Weimar said the child was “not seriousâ€.
The 22 cases are:
Mr Weimar said with a number of new primary close contacts, health authorities have a “huge body of work ahead of usâ€, with significant concerns around St Kilda East, Middle Park and Glenroy.
“One of our major concerns we’ve been talking about over the last few days now is the eight clusters at the moment,†he said. “We have some potential links between some of them, but until we can find and be confident that we’ve got all those cases completely under control, or we understand all the linkages, there’ll be some risk.â€
ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr says he would prefer the upcoming federal parliamentary sitting block to be cancelled, as the territory’s lockdown has been extended into September.
Mr Barr said he had spoken to the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader about whether politicians return to Parliament House for the scheduled fortnight sitting period.
“My preference would be that they don’t unless they absolutely have to,†he said. “If they did it would need to be a very minimal sitting and absolutely COVID-safe, but my starting point would be now is probably not the time for the Federal Parliament to return.â€
The ACT lockdown has been extended by a further two weeks to September 2 after 19 new cases were confirmed.
Labor leader Anthony Albanese said he supports Parliament being postponed.
“It will be very difficult to get people here in order for Parliament to sit,†he told reporters earlier. “I am of the view that Parliament should sit wherever possible. Our democratic processes are important. But where it’s not possible, we’ve always been co-operative, as we were last year, in terms of rescheduling any parliamentary sittings that are required.â€
NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro said earlier that the permit system for travel between Greater Sydney and regional NSW will be available this weekend.
More than 50 new cases were recorded across the Western NSW and Hunter-New England local health districts on Monday.
Mr Barilaro confirmed the permit would limit regional travel to a second residence to one person only.
“There are a number of changes we will make but we will make that clear this week,†he said.
Asked if he was concerned about regional hospitals becoming overrun with COVID-19 patients, Mr Barilaro said he was confident resources could be redirected to affected areas and said the statewide lockdown would assist to isolate outbreaks.
NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant said she was “particularly concerned†by the impact the virus was having on Aboriginal communities in western NSW and said vaccination rates in these communities were not as high as she would have liked to see given the federal government said these communities would be prioritised in the rollout.
“We are working with the Commonwealth to increase opportunities for vaccination in impacted areas in western NSW,†she said. “Also I want to just advise people that, even if you’re fully immunised, you still have to follow all of the rules.â€
Victoria’s Premier says it’s still too early to say whether the AFL grand final will be held at the MCG this year.
“What I’m most concerned about now is all of us pulling together, finding it within ourselves to drive these numbers down,†Daniel Andrews said.
“That gives us options, it gives us options to have kids at school, to have businesses open up and have their people back at work, to have footy games with crowds and a million other things.â€
Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said health authorities are working with the Department of Education to make schools as safe as possible, but there is still no certainty that students would be able to be back in classrooms by September 2.
“​​There is a great desire to get kids back in school as soon as possible,†he said. “That said, this outbreak had significant transmission events in schools.
“We will preferentially look to year 11 and 12 students getting back [in classrooms] because of their particular needs and the particular disparity now between metro and regional Victoria.â€
Mr Andrews noted there would be coming announcements on the timing of exams and physical attendance to give students “the greatest amount of certainty possibleâ€.
Victoria’s Premier and Chief Health Officer have explained the decision-making process behind closing skate parks and playgrounds, an announcement that many Melbourne parents will have been dreading.
Premier Daniel Andrews claimed the Delta variant had been transmitted outdoors at the MCG in July â€" although that most likely occurred in a stadium bar, not actually outdoors.
“Areas where large numbers of kids will congregate over time, it’s simply impossible to disinfect the space between different groups,†he said.
Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said there were many instances where parents supervising children on playgrounds were sitting down, drinking coffees and not wearing masks while not social distancing.
“That’s the transmission risk, and the more we can get on top of each and every time â€" whether it’s a small and moderate or a significant contributor to that overall burden of transmission â€" we have to get to the finish line fast, so that this doesn’t drag on and on.â€
Victoria’s Premier said if cases are not reduced and public compliance with the rules does not improve, lockdown for Melbourne will have to extend again.
Daniel Andrews said he was “confident†the new curfew measures would reduce the number of poor choices being made that flout the COVID-19 directions.
“I thought you’d be unwise to plan [a gathering] and attend one and assume that you won’t get caught, because there’s every chance you will and you’ll be locked down for longer,†he said.
“Can I guarantee that 100 per cent of people will do the right thing 100 per cent of the time? I think that would be a foolish thing to assume, but we will drive down the number of really selfish acts, and those acts that put everything at risk.
“I’m deeply grateful and so proud of the millions and millions of Melburnians and Victorians who are doing the right thing.â€
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