Australia news LIVE NSW records 78 new local COVID-19 cases Victoria lockdown extension confirmed SA to begin week-long lockdown
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Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton has declared South Australia a “red zone†from 11.59pm on Wednesday.
That means all people in South Australia, including Victorian residents, are barred from entering Victoria from midnight tomorrow without an exemption. South Australia has gone into a seven-day lockdown.
Residents can’t travel back on red zone permits under new rules announced on Tuesday. They dictate the only residents who can return from red zones are authorised workers and those who get approval for a compassionate exemption.
The ban on red zone permits will be in place for at least two weeks.
Professor Sutton has also declared South Australia an “orange zone†retrospectively from 11.59pm on Monday, July 12. That means anyone who is currently in Victoria but has visited South Australia since then has to get tested for COVID-19 and isolate until they return a negative result.
Latest postsA second COVID-19 outbreak inside the Olympic village in as many days has forced Tokyo 2020 organisers to defend the protections they have in place to stop the spread of the virus through the Games precinct.
An unidentified athlete staying in one of the high-rise towers which, at the peak of the games, will house 6700 people, is the latest COVID-19 case. The infection followed two South African footballers earlier this week. The total number of cases connected to the Games both inside and outside the village had risen to 71 as of Tuesday afternoon, a day before competition officially begins with the softball in Fukushima.
Poland’s team wait for medical tests related to COVID-19 on their arrival for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Credit:AP
Tokyo 2020 spokesman Masa Takaya insisted despite the cases, there had been “no significant bumps†in the road towards’s Friday’s opening ceremony.
“The IOC and Tokyo 2020 are absolutely clear that the Olympic village is a safe place to stay,†he told reporters.
“We cannot say there will be no positive cases within the Olympic community given the situation that we have a massive number of people engaged within this project. But there are no significant bumps, in terms of the positivity rate, compared to the same number found in any other place.â€
IOC president Thomas Bach has claimed there is “zero†risk of athletes infecting other residents or Japanese working in the village.
Read the full story here.
NSW Health has released more details about the seven-day lockdown that will come into effect in three local government areas in the state’s central west from midnight tonight.
The lockdown will affect Orange, Blayney and Cabonne Shire Council, and residents there must stay at home unless they have an essential reason to leave.
The reasons are:
The stay-at-home orders will also apply to people who have been to Orange, Blayney and Cabonne Shire Council on or after Saturday, July 17.
People in the LGAs have to wear masks indoors outside their homes, and in outdoor settings where they cannot socially distance from others.
NSW Health said authorities would continue to monitor the COVID situation closely and provide updated information and advice.
“We understand this is a difficult time for the community and appreciate their ongoing patience,†it said in a statement.
“It is vital people continue to come forward for testing to help us find any COVID-19 cases in the community.â€
On Tuesday night the Gippsland Primary Health Network confirmed a positive COVID-19 case in the Wellington Shire, which covers towns including Sale, Yarram and Maffra.
In a statement on social media it said the Wellington Respiratory Clinic would increase capacity but there were no exposure sites associated with the positive case because the person was in quarantine while infectious.
Other testing sites will also be set up in Sale and Yarram on Wednesday.
Three weeks after it outlined its much-publicised road map for living with COVID-19, Singapore is returning to a partial lockdown for a month.
The south-east Asian city state is recording the highest incidence of new cases of the virus in 11 months with growing clusters around nightlife venues and a major fishing port causing alarm.
With 163 new infections recorded on Monday, the country is reverting to the tight restrictions it had in place during May and June, shutting down dining in restaurants, closing indoor venues such as gyms and limiting gatherings to two people.
The development is a setback to Singapore’s ambition to start dealing with COVID-19 as it would influenza and treating it as an endemic and manageable disease rather than a pandemic.
However, those plans are tied to vaccination and while it has the highest inoculation levels in the region, with 46 per cent of the population of 5.5 million fully vaccinated and 73 per cent having received one shot, the rate is not yet high enough for Singapore to confidently take the next step.
The latest wave of the virus here sprung from several so-called KTV bars, which are publicly called karaoke outlets but at which sexual services are known to be offered by foreign hostesses.
As we reported earlier today, two more crew members of the BBC California, currently docked at Fremantle, tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday.
Ten out of 14 seafarers from the ship, which came to Australia via COVID-19 Delta variant-stricken Indonesia, have now returned positive tests for the virus while the remaining four have completed serology testing showing they have yet to catch COVID-19.
“Our number one priority is don’t have COVID come from that ship to shore,†Mr McGowan said.
Mr McGowan said one option was to take the four healthy crew members off the ship and put them into hotel quarantine.
The Premier said the state was in conversations with the federal government on how best to manage ship arrivals after several vessels arrived in WA in the past month carrying positive cases.
About 25 stevedores are also being contacted by health authorities after a cargo ship, the Mattina, which was in WA from July 10 to 12 reported nine positive cases of COVID-19 in New Zealand overnight.
Mr McGowan said the WA Chief Health Officer considered any COVID-19 threat from the Mattina to WA to be low risk as it is believed all appropriate disease control protocols were being followed during its time in port.
WA Health is now monitoring 17 active COVID-19 cases; 10 on the BBC California, six in hotel quarantine, and one person in a stable condition in a Perth hospital who had been on board the MV Emerald Indah which had stopped by Geraldton.
West Australian Premier Mark McGowan says the danger level for COVID-19 spread around the country is high but he does not yet want to shut off his state from the rest of the nation.
Free travel is only allowed into the state from New Zealand, the Northern Territory, and Tasmania as the WA government introduced travel restrictions on Tuesday with South Australia, which has gone into a seven-day lockdown.
West Australian Premier Mark McGowan Credit:Picture: Hamish Hastie
WA currently has a hard border up with NSW, Queensland, and Victoria as the eastern seaboard deals with lockdowns brought on by outbreaks of the highly infectious Delta variant of COVID-19.
Mr McGowan said his state was not going to close itself off to the NT and Tasmania unless cases started appearing in those jurisdictions.
“Closing off to everyone at this point in time is not something we are doing,†he said. “We are in state of heightened anxiety and heightened risk but we need to keep a level head ... bear in mind we’re basically closed off to 80 per cent of the population of Australia now.
“But it’s obviously a big risk what’s occurring in Victoria, NSW, South Australia, and Queensland.
“The danger level at the moment is very high, that’s why we close borders to entire states.â€
Mr McGowan said he felt the current spread of the virus in Australia vindicated WA’s approach to shut itself off quickly to entire states rather than rely on a hotspot approach.
NSW Health has confirmed the local government area of Orange in the central west region of NSW will go into a seven-day lockdown from midnight tonight, after a person from the COVID-19 hotspot of south-west Sydney visited the area while infectious with the virus.
The lockdown will also affect residents in the local government areas of Blayney and Cabonne Shire Council.
We’ll provide more information on the lockdown shortly.
NSW Health has released its latest list of venues of concern, which include tier 1 exposure sites in Sydney’s western suburbs, CBD, Bondi Junction and in the regional towns of Orange and Goulburn.
The new venues at which people are considered close contacts and must immediately get tested and isolate for 14 days, regardless of the result, include medical centres, restaurants and pharmacies in Auburn, Lakemba, Wiley Park, Bankstown, Bondi Junction and a car wash in Greenacre.
The regional tier one venues include a Coles Express in Goulburn and a petrol station, tobacconist, Officeworks, Woolworths and Pizza Hut in Orange.
Check the NSW Health tweet below for the full list of venues, dates and times, including those for casual contacts.
Victoria’s QR code app will be updated in the coming weeks so that users can access their own check-in history in a move that will emulate the New South Wales and Queensland apps.
The Victorian opposition proposed this change this week and Liberals leader Michael O’Brien said on Tuesday that it would add another layer of assistance to contact tracing efforts.
Victorian Opposition Leader Michael O’Brien.Credit:Joe Armao
“We know there are still problems with contact tracing. We speak to people every day who have been at tier one exposure sites, and still haven’t been contacted by the Department of Health. They have worked it out themselves,†he said.
“It’d be much easier for people to be able to work it out themselves if they had access to their own QR codes.â€
A state government spokeswoman confirmed to The Age that the change would be active in the next few weeks along with a series of other updates to the Service Victoria app.
She said the app would be continually updated in response to user feedback.
“Our contact tracers are working tirelessly to get ahead of the Delta strain. They are able to access QR code check-in data just minutes after identifying a positive case.â€
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