Australia politics live update: NSW reports 16 new Covid cases; premier Gladys Berejiklian announces new Sydney restrictions; NZ, WA, Qld and Victoria tighten borders

 

NSW urgently investigating four mystery cases overnight. Follow all the latest updates, live

• New Zealand suspends travel bubble with NSW as Victoria shuts border to parts of Sydney
• NSW mask restrictions; NSW and ACT coronavirus hotspots
• Covid travel restrictions in Australia; Victoria Covid hotspots
• Wellington may face lockdown after visit by infected Australian tourist
  
  
  
  

 NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian gives an update on the state’s Covid outbreak on Wednesday morning. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP

Mark McGowan has updated the travel advice for NSW – and it goes a little further than Queensland and Victoria:

Following updated health advice related to the Covid-19 outbreak in New South Wales, WA has strengthened its border controls to reduce the risk of the virus coming into the WA community. NSW has transitioned from ‘very low risk’ (with a test and quarantine regime) to ‘medium risk’ under our controlled interstate border, effective from 11am today (23 June).

This returns us to hard border arrangements with New South Wales. Under the medium risk classification, travel from or through NSW is no longer permitted, except for exempt travellers. This also applies to anyone who may have been in NSW since 11 June and has not subsequently been in a ‘very low risk’ State or Territory for 14 days – this includes anyone travelling from the ACT who has travelled into NSW in that time.

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 For the unvaccinated, the world will never truly be safe

Queensland records no locally acquired COVID-19 cases as state closes borders to six Sydney council areas

 

Police will ramp up patrols and vehicle intercepts on the Queensland border.(

ABC News: Jennifer Huxley

Queensland has declared more New South Wales local government areas COVID-19 hotspots as the southern state's cluster of the highly infectious Delta variant grows.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said as of 1:00am on Thursday, Queensland will close its borders to Sydney, Bayside, Woollahra, Canada Bay, Inner West and Randwick council areas.

The state already declared the Waverley Council area a hotspot.

Travellers from those areas will be barred from entering the state, while Queenslanders returning from those areas will be placed in hotel quarantine.

Non-Queensland residents who have visited those areas will need an exemption to enter the state and will also need to quarantine.

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Queensland set to open border to Victorians from Friday

 

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. Credit:Attila Csaszar

“That is great news for people there,” she said during a COVID-19 update on Tuesday. “I know there are a lot of people that would have had their holidays booked to Queensland.”

Ms Palaszczuk said the state’s Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young felt “comfortable with the way Victoria is at, and we will keep a close eye on NSW.”

The update comes after Victoria recorded no new local cases on Tuesday and as New Zealand prepared to resume quarantine-free travel with the state.

There were two cases recorded in Victoria’s hotel quarantine on Tuesday. More than 13,000 COVID-19 test results were processed in the past 24 hours and more than 15,000 people received their vaccine doses from state authorities.

In NSW, cases continue to grow. The state recorded 10 new cases of COVID-19 in the community on Tuesday – five cases were detected in the 24 hours to 8pm on Monday, two of which had already been reported. An additional seven cases were detected after 8pm.

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Ten new local COVID-19 cases recorded in NSW as mandatory masks extended for seven days

 

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian. Source: AAP

Ten new locally transmitted COVID-19 cases have been recorded in New South Wales, taking the number of infections linked to a Sydney cluster to 21, amid fresh fears over "fleeting" transmission at a Bondi Junction shopping centre. 

The official case tally for Tuesday was five cases, including two announced on Monday. Seven additional cases were detected after the 8pm cut off and will be included in Wednesday's figures.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced extended mandatory mask restrictions on Tuesday, with all people in Greater Sydney, Wollongong and Shellharbour required to wear a face mask while indoors for an additional seven days.

The three new cases included in Tuesday's numbers include a woman in her 60s from the Illawarra, a woman in her 40s from Sydney's northern suburbs, and a woman in her 20s from the eastern suburbs who is believed to have contracted the virus through "fleeting contact" while working at Westfield Bondi Junction.

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How did Brisbane's COVID-19 quarantine hotel breach happen?

 

Professor McMillan said he does not feel Australia needs to consider extending quarantine to 21 days

ABC News: Ben Harris

Professor McMillan said the hotel quarantine system has been working "very well" based on the latest data, but there were drawbacks.

"We've seen 350,000 people [go] through the system and less than 20 escapes [of the virus]," he said.

"But that has resulted in two lockdowns in Brisbane and a short lockdown in Western Australia and longer lockdowns in Melbourne."

Professor McMillan said if Australia wanted to bring back international students and expats, larger quarantine facilities similar to those at Howard Springs in the Northern Territory would be required.

"We know that 95 per cent of people will be positive by day 14," he said.

"Given the success of the program in terms of the figures, the cases of people who have become positive after testing negative is quite small, so I don't think we need to go to 21 days [quarantine] at all."

Singapore and Hong Kong recently extended their quarantine periods from 14 days to 21 days.

The Commonwealth has recently approved a purpose-built quarantine facility to be built in Melbourne – in addition to one that has been operating in the Northern Territory.

However, a Queensland proposal has been dismissed by Prime Minister Scott Morrison on multiple occasions.

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 Anti-Vaxers have Rocks Between their Ears

Australia’s vaccine rollout ‘constrained’ by Pfizer supply shortages until August

States and territories say more GPs will be needed to dispense Pfizer when supplies increase later in the year

Australia’s vaccine rollout will be limited by Pfizer supply constraints until deliveries increase from August. Photograph: Dan Peled/AAP

Shortages of the Pfizer Covid vaccine are expected to slow Australia’s rollout through June and July, as states and territories call on the commonwealth to sign up more GPs to dispense doses when supplies increase in August.

The national cabinet met on Monday to discuss Australia’s coronavirus vaccine rollout in the wake of updated health advice that AstraZeneca is not the preferred vaccine for those aged 50 to 59 due to the risk of rare blood clots.

At the meeting, the head of the rollout, Lt Gen John Frewen, gave states and territories projections of the maximum and minimum number of vaccines they will be allocated. The aged care minister, Richard Colbeck, is expected to table the figures at the Senate’s Covid-19 inquiry on Monday evening.

Before the meeting, the commonwealth agreed to New South Wales’s request for 50,000 Pfizer doses, which Cdr Eric Young told reporters in Canberra would be spread over three weeks.

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 For the unvaccinated, the world will never truly be safe

Long Covid or vaccine side effect fears: the choice is clear for holdouts

Many who are reluctant to get inoculated may fear some unknown long-term side effects of the jab

But they must also consider the risks of being infected and suffering from symptoms for many months because, for the unvaccinated, the world will never truly be safe.

A coronavirus patient breathes through an oxygen mask in a temporary Covid-19 care centre in New Delhi. Photo: dpa

A common reason given by those unwilling to get vaccinated is that they worry about unknown long-term side effects from Covid-19 vaccination. Never mind that these vaccines were developed by some of the brightest scientific minds around, built on decades of research on how medicines can be developed more quickly and safely. Never mind that they have been thoroughly tested and found to be safe, and that we have been using vaccines for over 200 years to prevent the spread of diseases such as measles and chickenpox. 

If people are worried about the “long-term” unknown side effects of getting jabbed, they should consider the alternative set of long-term risks they are exposing themselves to. One must ask what risks they are willing to take: either this fear of some long-term unknown side effect of a vaccine, or the well-established risks that getting infected with Covid-19 brings.

The side effects of the vaccine are well known in the short term, and the risk of any long-term side-effects is minute, in the expert opinion of those who developed these vaccines. But what about the risks associated with getting infected?

In the short term, a significant number of people get very sick, and many die. And the long term? An increasing number of studies are reporting people suffering from symptoms for many months after they were infected with Covid-19.

 

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