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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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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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 first locally made COVID-19 mRNA vaccine candidate is set for clinical trials

 

The first clinical trials are expected to involve around 150 people, the Victorian government says

He said his team believed this approach was likely to produce a better kind of booster shot for future variants, which could be given to those already vaccinated against the original strain.

The team is also in the early stages of testing an mRNA vaccine candidate modelled on the Kappa variant.

And there's a protein vaccine being trialed as well?

Yes, that's right.

While Monash University has developed an mRNA vaccine candidate, the Doherty Institute has developed a protein vaccine candidate.

Both of them are focused on the receptor-binding domain of the Beta strain, so Professor Pouton said it made sense to work together and run the Phase 1 trial side by side.

The hope is, we'll learn more about whether the approach of targeting the receptor-binding domain is going to be useful to prepare us against future variations.

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Flight attendant tests positive for COVID-19 in Queensland after DFO visit in Brisbane

A woman has tested positive to COVID-19 in Queensland overnight.

Queensland Health said in a statement that the woman, aged in her 30s, had completed 14 days of hotel quarantine at 9:00am on Saturday.

She had returned negative tests during hotel quarantine.

Shoppers who visited DFO in Brisbane on Saturday are being asked to quarantine and await advice from Queensland Health. ABC News: Jim Malo

A follow-up test on June 19 shortly after leaving hotel quarantine — which was as part of routine aircrew surveillance — came back positive on Saturday evening.

The woman has been out in the community, travelling in a private shuttle bus to accommodation in Hamilton, north of Brisbane yesterday morning, before going to the DFO shopping centre near Brisbane airport and the CBD in the afternoon and a restaurant in the early evening.

Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said while the risk is low she was taking a very cautious approach. 

"She came into Brisbane on June 5 on an Emirates flight and we know she had contact with a positive case on that flight who had the Delta variant," Dr Young said.

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Fears AstraZeneca reputation has been ‘tarnished’ beyond repair

 

Brendan Crabb, director and chief executive of the Burnet Institute.Credit:Jesse Marlow

Vaccination experts say they fear the reputation of the AstraZeneca vaccine could have been tarnished beyond repair in Australia, leaving the population dangerously exposed to coronavirus outbreaks in the months to come.

Following the latest decision by the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation to limit the AstraZeneca vaccine to those over 60, doctors say patients have been cancelling their vaccine appointments in droves and abusing receptionists as they demand the Pfizer jab instead.

While top vaccine experts say AstraZeneca may not be as widely used in Australia in future when supplies of alternatives increase, they believe negative public sentiment around the safety of the vaccine is out of proportion with the risks posed by a serious but rare side effect.

Burnet Institute director Brendan Crabb said the AstraZeneca vaccine had proven to be more effective in the real world than predicted in clinical trials. The 54-year-old said he would not hesitate to have his second dose.

“COVID is truly terrible and there’s every chance AstraZeneca induced immunity would stand between me and serious illness,” Professor Crabb said.

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Anti-vaccine activists aim to 'convert' Victorians queuing up to receive COVID-19 jab

 

Anti-vaccine activists have targeted inoculation hubs in Melbourne.
ABC News: Daniel Fermer

CoronaCheck is RMIT ABC Fact Check's weekly email newsletter, dedicated to fighting the misinformation infodemic surrounding the coronavirus outbreak.

You can read the latest edition below, and subscribe to have the next newsletter delivered straight to your inbox.

CoronaCheck #70

In this week's CoronaCheck, we bring you disturbing footage of anti-vaxxers trying to dissuade people queuing at a Melbourne COVID-19 vaccination centre from getting the jab.

We also debunk claims the dramatic mid-game collapse of an international soccer star was brought on by a coronavirus vaccine, and take the measure of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson's carbon footprint.

Quest to 'convert' vaccine recipients

Anti-vaccine activists have hounded people queuing outside a COVID-19 vaccination centre in Melbourne in an attempt to convince them not to go ahead with immunisation.

Video appeared to show at least one woman having been swayed by the group's efforts.

Footage shared to the encrypted messaging service Telegram on May 29, and seen by Fact Check, shows a small group approaching people queuing for vaccination outside the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC).

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 Anti-Vaxers have Rocks Between their Ears

Sydney cluster grows by two cases with new infections linked to Westfield

 

Westfield in Bondi Junction. (Wolter Peeters)

Sydney's new coronavirus cluster has grown by a two cases, as new alerts were issued for Sydney trains, an Ikea and a cafe as far south as Wollongong.

 

It brings the cluster to six, with much of the focus of calls to get tested continuing to focus on thousands of people who went to Westfield Bondi Junction last weekend.

 

There were officially two new cases recorded, but one, a woman in her 70s who crossed paths with the 'patient zero' driver in Belle cafe in nearby Vaucluse was announced yesterday, and another will be in tomorrow's figures.

 

A woman in her 40s who lives near Westfield Bondi Junction and often walks though is one of the new cases. It's not know when she might have caught the virus but officials say it could have been last weekend.

Sydney's latest exposure sites

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Concerns AstraZeneca advice could spark more vaccine rollout delays

Australia’s vaccine rollout was hit with another blow after advice on the AstraZeneca jab changed, raising concerns over exactly what the impact will be.

A health worker prepares to hold a vial of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 coronavirus vaccine. Picture: Yad Kramdi/AFPSource:AFP

As Australia’s embattled vaccine rollout reels from another blow following the change in advice for the AstraZeneca jab, questions are being raised about the impacts this could have going forward.

So far more than 6.3 million vaccine doses have been administered across the country, but health experts have continually stressed the rollout was progressing quickly enough.

Now, with the recommendation that the AstraZeneca vaccine should only be given to those aged 60 and above after another person died from a blood clot in her brain, there are fears the rollout could be stalled even further.

People aged 50-59 are now being told to get the Pfizer vaccine instead, of which Australia has significantly less doses.

In its initial plan, the Federal Government was aiming to have the majority of the adult population vaccinated by October 2021.

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Should COVID vaccines be compulsory for care home staff? Experts debate

 

The UK government has announced that COVID-19 vaccination will become mandatory for staff working in care homes for older people in England. Staff will be given 16 weeks to get the vaccine. If they don't get the jab, they will be redeployed from frontline care or lose their job.

Mandating vaccination would increase vaccine uptake in care home workers, but it would be a significant intrusion into individual freedom. Is it ethically justifiable?

Yes—Professor Dominic Wilkinson

In the early phase of the pandemic, some of the most medically vulnerable people ended up catching coronavirus from those caring for them; 40,000 patients in England are said to have caught COVID while in hospital. Some patients and care home residents died from infections that they caught from their caregivers. We must do everything possible to avoid repeating this tragic and distressing situation.

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Epidemiologist warns of 'problematic' growth linked to Sydney's COVID-19 Delta strain

 

  

 

 Sydney is on alert again after two locally acquired cases.AAP: Jason O'Brien

 

Sydney is "in trouble" and restrictions need to be brought in "quickly" after it was revealed a limousine driver was found to have the Delta strain of COVID-19, a leading epidemiologist says.

The coronavirus outbreak in Sydney's eastern suburbs grew to four cases today after a man in his 50s tested positive for the virus.

NSW Premier Gladys Ms Berejiklian said the new infection appeared to have contracted the virus while at Myer inside Westfield shopping centre at Bondi Junction, on June 12.

A limousine driver aged in his 60s was found to be carrying the Delta strain and police are investigating whether he breached quarantine protocols.

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ACT lists two exposure sites after positive COVID-19 case travelled from NSW to Canberra

 

ACT Health has listed two coronavirus exposure locations.

ACT Health has confirmed a positive COVID-19 case from New South Wales visited the territory on Monday 14 June. 

The man in his 40s is from Sydney's north-western suburbs. His test results showed "low virus levels, which NSW Health has not been able to rule out as a possible case of COVID-19".

ACT Health has listed two sites as exposure locations in the ACT. 

They are urging those who were at the venues at the specified times to immediately isolate until further advised by ACT Health, get a COVID-19 test and fill in the declaration form available at the ACT Health website.

Health authorities are also asking all those who visited the National Gallery of Australia, including the main gift shop, from 12-2pm on Monday,  June 14, to be vigilant for any COVID-19 symptoms, and immediately get tested and isolate if symptoms develop.

ACT Chief Health Officer Dr Kerryn Coleman said this morning that authorities do not think the case is highly infectious. 

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