Friday 29th of March 2024

locked up...

lockdown....lockdown....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The upward trend of COVID-19 infections in NSW is expected to continue today and exceed 100 cases, Premier Gladys Berejiklian warns. 

Key points:
  • The state has recorded its first COVID-19 death since December
  • Dr Chant says south-west Sydney has an extraordinarily high number of cases
  • Essential workers and tradies are urged to get tested before continuing to work

Yesterday, the state recorded 77 new locally acquired cases, with 42 of these spending time in the community while infected — increasing the likelihood the lockdown could go beyond midnight on Friday, July 16.

The Premier yesterday said the case numbers would get much worse in the coming days.

"I'm anticipating the numbers in New South Wales will be greater than 100 tomorrow," Ms Berejiklian said.

"That's what I'm anticipating, and I'll be shocked if it's less than 100 this time tomorrow."

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-12/nsw-covid-19-cases-expected-to-top-100-on-monday-july-12/100284798

cooped up singularly here and in HMP belmarsh...

 

For the past two weeks, the only time Erienne Lette was able to physically see other people was during her outdoor exercise classes.

Living alone and working from home meant the 29-year-old was plunged into isolation when health authorities announced a lockdown of metropolitan Sydney in a desperate bid to curb a quickly growing outbreak of COVID-19 Delta variant.

Most days, however, the inner-west resident was able to participate in a 10-person outdoor bootcamp — permitted under the stay-at-home orders — which provided a much-needed reprieve from isolation.

LIVE UPDATES: Read our blog for the latest news on the COVID-19 pandemic

But this changed on Friday when Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced the introduction of stricter lockdown conditions, including a two-person limit for outdoor exercise.

"I immediately broke down sobbing when she announced the two-person limit outdoors," Lette said, "because the boot camps that I've been doing outside with my gym have been the only interaction I have with other people that isn't through a screen."

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-12/people-living-alone-in-sydney-despair-over-covid-19-restrictions/100282094

 

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stay home and panic!...

 

NSW records 112 COVID-19 cases, highest daily number in outbreak

 

The AstraZeneca vaccine will be available to over 40s in NSW after the state recorded 112 new locally acquired COVID-19 cases.

Key points:
  • The majority of new cases are coming from the Fairfield LGA
  • Several cases of transmission have occurred at medical centres and pharmacies 
  • There have been 678 locally acquired cases reported since last month

Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the AstraZeneca vaccine would now be available to anyone over 40 who wants it but warned people to "consider your own risk".

"We have had some outstanding conversations with the New South Wales Pharmacy Guild and we are in the process of allowing pharmacists across the state to provide AstraZeneca to anybody over 40," she said.

Chief health officer Kerry Chant urged anyone who had received the AstraZeneca jab within the past four weeks to call their GP to see if their second dose could be administered between six and eight weeks after the first dose.

LIVE UPDATES: Read our blog for the latest news on the COVID-19 pandemic

"Clearly, having the vaccine within the six to eight weeks trades off the duration of protection that that vaccine might provide you, but we know that into the future, we will be providing booster doses of various vaccines and what we want to do is protect you [now]," she said.

Under 40s will soon be able to access AstraZeneca at vaccination hubs, without seeking advice from their GP.

Dr Chant said this was because "the current risk situation has changed dramatically".

"Because we actually have … the Delta strain circulating, it then means that your individual risk of acquiring the strain is very much different than it would have been a month or so ago when your community risk would have been very low," she said.

The Australian Technical Advisory Group (ATAGI's) advice on AstraZeneca is that it remains the preferred vaccine for over 60s, although it can be used by younger adults who don't have access to Pfizer.

Ms Berejiklian said at least 34 of today's new cases were infectious while in the community.

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-12/nsw-covid-19-update-112-cases/100285698

 

Read from top.

 

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good bad news...

NSW is bracing for another day of soaring COVID-19 cases, but the state's Chief Health Officer says higher case numbers aren't always a bad sign.

Key points:
  • The number of locally acquired cases in NSW exceeded 100 for the first time yesterday
  • Kerry Chant said those numbers needed to be interpreted based on whether the patients were in isolation or not
  • Parts of NSW have been in lockdown for almost two and a half weeks

Yesterday, the daily COVID-19 case figure ticked over into triple digits for the first time since April 3 last year, with 112 infections recorded.

It was the highest number of cases detected in a day since the outbreak began in Sydney's eastern suburbs in mid-June.

It was also the first time in NSW that local cases exceeded 100 in a 24-hour period.

Previous totals in the first half of 2020 included infections acquired overseas in daily reporting figures.

LIVE UPDATES: Read our blog for the latest news on the COVID-19 pandemic

Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant yesterday said she was in "two minds" about whether today's numbers would be higher, but if they were, it didn't necessarily indicate the outbreak was worsening.

"The numbers are a bit variable because we have to interpret about whether we are getting to people early," she said.

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-13/nsw-broke-covid-19-records-but-its-not-a-numbers-game/100286806

 

Read from top.

 

assangexassangex

scott of the expanding bullshit....

Scott Morrison faced an inevitable question in the hours after former prime minister Kevin Rudd confirmed he had spoken to the global chief executive of Pfizer two weeks ago to ask for more vaccines to be sent to Australia.

That question? When did Morrison speak to the Pfizer boss, Albert Bourla?

Scott Morrison faced an inevitable question in the hours after former prime minister Kevin Rudd confirmed he had spoken to the global chief executive of Pfizer two weeks ago to ask for more vaccines to be sent to Australia.

That question? When did Morrison speak to the Pfizer boss, Albert Bourla?

(Never...)

The comparison with other countries is crucial. Morrison names Israel as the only country with a vaccination rate of more than 65 per cent but does not mention one of the reasons. It clearly helped that Israel’s former prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, called Bourla repeatedly to close a deal.

“I was impressed, frankly, with the obsession of your prime minister,” Bourla told Israeli television in March. “He called me 30 times.”

Bourla has been frank about the way national leaders call him to secure supplies. In fact, he asked to deal with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga directly in April to deal with fears about vaccine shortages. That phone call reportedly led to Japan gaining 50 million extra doses by September.

When Canadians worried about supplies in the northern winter in January, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau set up a phone call with Bourla. Canada has a vaccination rate of 42 per cent, four times that of Australia.

The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, called the Pfizer boss “dear Albert” at a meeting in April while United States President Joe Biden held a press conference with him at the G7 summit last month. Bourla, the son of Greek parents who survived the Holocaust, has talked several times with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

This would not matter if Australia had the same vaccine supplies as other countries, but it has been left in the dust while others race ahead. Morrison has swerved all over the road with his messages, from putting the country “at the front of the queue” to assuring everyone it was “not a race” and then promising results by Christmas.

Every political leader can be judged on the numbers in this pandemic. If Morrison wants the credit for low case numbers and deaths, he gets the blame for low vaccine supplies.

 

This is the real importance of Rudd’s intervention. There is no evidence his phone call with Bourla changed anything in the past few weeks, but it highlights there was no similar call from anyone in charge. That looks complacent and embarrassing.

Rudd, in other words, has intensified the attack on Morrison to a level Labor leader Anthony Albanese often struggles to reach. While the official opposition takes its time, Rudd and another former prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, grab the headlines with their assertions of a massive government failure.

 

The questions are bigger than the argument over whether Australia turned down an offer from Pfizer in July last year. The events at that meeting are disputed and covered in-depth by Rachel Clun here, but there can be no argument about Australia’s sluggish approach. The United Kingdom, the US and Japan struck deals with Pfizer in July, then Canada signed up in August and the EU in September. Australia took until November.

Morrison says the demand for vaccines has been lower in Australia because the country has done so well in fighting the virus. “To a sense, we’re prisoners of our own success,” he says. Yet there are queues at vaccine hubs. Doctors want more doses at their clinics. Pharmacies want to offer the jabs, too. And younger Australians are told to wait months to be protected.

 

Read more:

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/rudd-claim-reveals-the-call-morrison-never-made-20210713-p58969.html

 

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goodies for gladys, not for dan...

 

‘Double standard’: Federal aid sparks clash between Victoria and PM            By David Crowe, Annika Smethurst and David Estcourt

 

 

The Victorian and federal governments are locked in a battle of recrimination and blame after Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a plan to support people unable to work because of the NSW coronavirus lockdown.

After a second death and another 89 new COVID-19 cases recorded in Sydney on Tuesday, Mr Morrison announced that workers in NSW will get an increase in their income support from $500 to $600 a week while business owners will be offered a cash-flow boost of up to $10,000.

 

The support will flow to thousands of companies forced to close during the lockdowns across Greater Sydney under a package funded equally by the federal and NSW governments, testing a new model for shutdowns in other states and territories.

But the plan was not received warmly in Victoria where during the lockdown in May and June relations soured after federal government members backgrounded journalists on its view that state governments should take primary responsibility for the cost of lockdowns.

After the first week of Victoria’s lockdown, the Commonwealth funded a disaster payment of up to $500 for those who had lost work, although it had an assets test imposed which has been waived in NSW.

 

Read more:

https://www.smh.com.au/national/australia-news-live-nsw-cases-and-exposure-sites-grow-melbourne-awaits-testing-results-20210714-p589gt.html

 

MEANWHILE:

 

Is there such a thing as a "soft" lockdown?

 

The Premier Gladys Berejiklian is expected to officially announce today that the lockdown in Greater Sydney will be extended. 

It comes a day after the New South Wales Government announced a $4.1 billion business support package for which it budgeted to be in lockdown for another few weeks. 

But the Premier is unlikely to make any longer term predictions about the duration of the lockdown in her announcement this morning.

The Federal Government will also spend $500 million a week on business and income support while Greater Sydney is in lockdown. 

LIVE UPDATES: Read our blog for the latest news on the COVID-19 pandemic

How long much longer lockdown needs to be before the state is able to get its COVID-19 outbreak under control remains unclear.

Plenty of experts have had a crack at answering it.

Earlier this week, the ABC's Dr Norman Swan warned a tougher lockdown — like the one imposed on Melbourne during its second wave last year — was needed.

He referred to medical research body the Burnet Institute, which released modelling on Monday saying more restrictions were needed to control the Delta COVID-19 variant's spread through Sydney. 

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-14/why-no-one-knows-when-sydney-covid-lockdown-will-end/100289118

 

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equal dan and gladys...

Treasury officials estimate the ongoing Sydney lockdown is costing the national economy $700 million a week.

Key points:
  • Daniel Andrews said his government struggled to acquire support during Melbourne’s outbreak
  • Josh Frydenberg said a difference in the economy from last year means “targeted” supports to hotspot zones
  • Mr Frydenberg said the infection of a driver working around Sydney Airport “should not have happened”

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg revealed the estimate in an interview with 7.30's Laura Tingle after the federal government unveiled major changes to its economic support for areas considered "hotspots" under lockdown.

The changes will see the government contribute more in both household and business support than it did in the previous Melbourne outbreak in late May and early June — which was effectively the first test for businesses facing lockdowns without the protection of the federal JobKeeper wage subsidy.

Victorian leaders complained that they had asked the federal government for additional support but the answer had been "no". Prime Minister Scott Morrison said at the time that other states such as Queensland and Western Australia "took on" the economic costs when they had "decided" to enact lockdowns.

But in early June as the Melbourne lockdown extended beyond its initial week, the federal government softened its stance and brought in $500 payments for individuals who had lost work. Those payments were to be consistently applied in future COVID "hotspots", as defined by the Commonwealth.

This year's budget made assumptions that there would be ongoing outbreaks and lockdowns throughout 2021, but "not of the lengthy duration we're now seeing in NSW," Mr Frydenberg said.

Asked if NSW should also take the "blame" for this lockdown, Mr Frydenberg said the infection of an unvaccinated, unmasked limousine driver working around Sydney Airport "should not have happened".

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-13/frydenberg-covid-support-victoria-andrews/100291000

 

Meanwhile let me say whatever... Blaming a limo driver for the latest outbreak is a bit weak... Other sources of Covid did happen but the government won't tell us because of "cultural sensitivities"...

 

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