Australia COVID LIVE updates Cases continue to grow in NSW Victoria and Queensland
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The outbreak of Delta clustered around Brisbane’s west is putting so much pressure on local supermarkets that delivery times for groceries is as long as three days.
Queensland Deputy Premier Steven Miles.Credit:Matt Dennien
More than 10,000 people are in home quarantine, many of them entire families from the suburbs of Indooroopilly, Taringa, St Lucia, and are relying on home delivery for essentials. Queensland Deputy Premier Steven Miles said hundreds of supermarkets workers forced into quarantine was compounding the problem.
He said people having trouble getting timely delivery of their groceries should ask friends from lesser-impacted suburbs to ‘click and collect’ from other supermarkets and have them drop it at their doors.
Supermarkets had opened up priority delivery slots, redeployed staff and added additional delivery trucks, while UberEats had partnered with IGA to provide an additional delivery option, Mr Miles said.
“Supermarkets have also asked if we could remind people in the lockdown areas that are going out to the supermarket for essential supplies, to do so alone if possible,†he said.
“Get one member of the household to get groceries, don’t all go together. That will assist supermarkets in maintaining social distancing.“
He said anyone who needed help would get it by calling 134 COVID.
Millions of Queenslanders will have to wait until Sunday to find out if they will be released as planned from the state’s most severe lockdown of the pandemic after another 13 cases of locally acquired COVID-19 were announced on Saturday morning.
All the new cases of Delta can be linked the Indooroopilly cluster, which has now grown to 102. More than half are aged 19 or younger.
Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said all 13 were “probably†in quarantine while infectious but she was unsure about one case.
Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young.Credit: Supplied
Of the new cases, five are household contacts of Ironside State School and four are household contacts of Indooroopilly State High School, both of which have been at the centre of the cluster.
The remaining cases are also household contacts of known hotspots, including Brisbane Grammar School.
Most of south-east Queensland has been in lockdown since Saturday last week after it was revealed a family of five with school-aged children had tested positive alongside a teacher and tutor.
It was supposed to be circuit-breaker lockdown and lift after three days but case numbers consistently in the double figures meant it was extended to 4pm on Sunday. Dr Young said Saturday’s numbers were “encouragingâ€.
The Indooroopilly cluster is unique among Australia’s Delta outbreaks in that those infected are mostly school children and their close family contacts.
At least 10 Brisbane schools or their facilities appear on Queensland Health’s list of exposure sites. Many of them are on the same train and bus lines to the west of the city and five within three kilometres of the popular Indooroopilly Shopping Centre
Queensland has recorded 13 new cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours.
Twelve cases were isolated during their infectious period and one is under investigation.
Deputy Premier Steven Miles said there are now 102 cases linked to the Delta cluster.
“We did 40,835 tests in the last 24 hours so across the metrics that we are looking to [there are] good results,†he said.
“All cases are linked, limited community exposure and a continued high testing rate above that 40,000 goal that we set for ourselves. It’s important to note we will see continued cases.â€
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk will be leaving quarantine tomorrow, having completed the full two weeks of isolation after her trip to the Tokyo Olympics.
Ms Palaszczuk has undergone her final COVID test and received a negative result. She will be back at work on Sunday.
We are standing by for the daily COVID-19 update from Queensland. The state on Friday recorded 10 new cases - five adults and five children.
Stream the live press conference from 10am here:
It’s been the story of this pandemic so many times before: the sun breaks through, then the clouds roll in again.
So it was at the end of this week. Just as the NSW government was gaining traction with its message to all adults, 18 and over, to get vaccinated promptly against COVID-19 â€" and not to hesitate over AstraZeneca â€" news came that must have left the state’s senior health officers with their heads in their hands.
A young woman, just 34, died from an exceedingly rare blood-clotting disorder linked to the vaccine â€" only the sixth Australian to do so from more than 6. 8 million doses of AstraZeneca administered in this country.
Utterly tragic as her death was, health authorities are desperate to keep the public mind focused more on the state’s mounting toll of death and disease from COVID-19, hoping this will drive vaccine uptake â€" the jab seemingly now the only ray of hope on NSW’s horizon.
Read more of this story from Deborah Snow and Lucy Carroll.
Familiar scenes out of Melbourne today, where residents are enduring their second full day of a statewide lockdown. Victoria has recorded 29 new cases.
Age photographer Scott McNaughton has captured these images of empty streets in North Melbourne this morning.
Victoria has entered another statewide lockdown.Credit:Scott McNaughton
All quiet in North Melbourne on Saturday morning.Credit:Scott McNaughton
Empty streets of North Melbourne on Saturday morning.Credit:Scott McNaughton
Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews has promised Australians who live abroad that they will still be able to leave the country if they apply for an exemption after the government moved to close a “loophole†in Australia’s hard border.
All Australians wanting to leave the country will now need to apply for an exemption. Credit:James Brickwood
The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age revealed on Thursday that the federal government has banned Australians who normally live in other countries from returning home without needing government permission.
“Travel exemption arrangements have been updated to improve consistency on border measures for all Australians,†Ms Andrews said.
“This does not stop Australians ordinarily resident outside Australia from departing, however these people will now need to apply for an exemption.â€
Read more on this story from Anthony Galloway.
In case you missed it yesterday, the NSW government has backed down on plans to send all year 12s back to school and instead ruled HSC trials must be done online and students living or studying in hotspots must not be allowed onto school sites at all.
The new rules, which kick in August 16, will allow year 12 students back to campuses but not for periods longer than two hours, and not five days a week.
Students living inside the eight hardest-hit local government areas will not be able to attend schools.
NSW Teachers Federation president Angelo Gavrielatos on Saturday told ABC News teachers were relieved that “sanity prevailed.“
“These are difficult times for teachers and certainly difficult times for our year 12 students who were impacted last year and again this year, and of course their parents,†he said.
“We will do what we can in order to ensure education continuity remotely, whether it is through online platforms or other means, to ensure that continuity of education is provided.“
More on this issue from SMH education editor Jordan Baker here.
The double digit figure comes just days after the state recorded zero cases on Wednesday, bringing the number of active cases to 97.
All 29 new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 are linked to known cases but were not in quarantine during their infectious period.
There were over 43,000 tests and 22,335 vaccinations have been administered across the state.
Contact tracers are scrambling to get on top of the outbreak and the exposure sites continue to grow, now reaching over 80.
Authorities have closed three schools across Melbourne.
Epidemiologists advising the state and federal governments say Victorians will endure more frequent lockdowns until the end of the year because of Sydney’s worsening outbreak and the high infectiousness of the Delta variant of COVID-19.
Each lockdown is estimated to cost the state economy about $1 billion a week.Credit:Justin McManus
The most recent modelling of possible outbreak scenarios predicts Victoria could spend at least one in four days under lockdown, while other scenarios predict even more frequent lockdowns will be required to contain the spread of the virus.
Monash University’s epidemiology team head James Trauer said Victoria could expect to cycle through lockdowns until vaccine coverage of 70 or 80 per cent was reached.
“It does look likely that we’ll need several more lockdowns from now till we have substantial vaccination coverage,†Associate Professor Trauer said.
Read more on this story.
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