Sydney is in risky situation

The NSW government has announced a two-week lockdown for Greater Sydney including Wollongong, Blue Mountains, Central Coast and Shellharbour after the case numbers linked to the Bondi Junction cluster increased to 80. The four reasons for leaving the house are work and study, shopping for essentials, exercise and caregiving.

/NSW Premier Gladys Berjiklian

No regrets: Berejiklian

Premier Gladys Berejiklian warned case numbers would continue to rise, with entire households becoming infected due to one contagious family member. But like Dr Chant she said the mark of success was whether those cases were already isolating.

“That is why we are in the [lockdown] situation we are in … it is important for all of us to respect the stay-at-home and lockdown provisions, so that all of us can stay safe,” she said.

Ms Berejiklian denied delaying introducing a lockdown, saying she did so as soon as the health advice changed. NSW Health was required to correct a bungle on last Sunday afternoon after listing the wrong pub, the Crossroads Hotel in Casula, as an exposure site. The pub was meant to be the Crossways Hotel, about 20 kilometres east in the Sydney suburb of Strathfield.

Cascading effect

In the Northern Territory, Chief Minister Michael Gunner was “assuming the worst” as he put Darwin into a two-day lockdown. People could only leave home for essential reasons and were required to wear masks when they did. The lockdown was sparked by the discovery of four new locally acquired cases from a mine site which are believed to have stemmed from a Queensland hotel quarantine leak.

/ Northern Territory Chief Minister Michael Gunner

Out west, health restrictions were boosted around the Perth region for three days, including axing crowds at sports events hours before a scheduled AFL bout between the Eagles and Bulldogs at Optus Stadium. Those restrictions were set off by an infected physiotherapist who had come from a Sydney exposure site to Perth. She had been treating clients for several days while unknowingly infectious. South Australia effectively shut itself off from the entire country, except Victoria and Tasmania, over fears of cases from the Sydney outbreak reaching the state.

The ACT government introduced new health restrictions as local police booted 50 Sydneysiders out of a hotel in Canberra for breaching travel restrictions. People in the capital were mandated to wear masks on public transport or indoors “with people they don’t usually live or work with” from Friday.

Queensland was on alert after it discovered two new local cases linked to a previous leak in the state’s hotel quarantine program, unrelated to the fresh cases in the Northern Territory. The two new cases in the Sunshine State were a cleaner and her partner, with the former in touch with three close contacts of a previous case.

Victoria reported no new local cases on Sunday as state health authorities expressed confidence they had a Melbourne cluster, sparked by a returned traveller from Sydney, under control.

Health authorities in New Zealand also extended health restrictions in the capital, Wellington, after a visit from an infected Sydney tourist. Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt refused to set what percentage of the population would need to be vaccinated to avoid future lockdowns.