For the first time since the Coronavirus pandemic began in Australia, the country’s new daily infections have breached above 1,000 cases. Three people, all unvaccinated, have died. It was so bad that Sydney, the country’s largest city and the epicenter of the current outbreak, has scrambled to set up emergency outdoor tents to deal with the stubborn rise of infections.
The state of New South Wales (NSW), where Sydney is the capital, reported 1,029 new locally transmitted cases, breaching the previous record of 919 a day earlier. As a result the lockdown in NSW has been extended until September 10 as authorities struggle to stamp out the surge even after 2 months under lockdown, believed to be caused by Delta variant.
State Premier Gladys Berejiklian said authorities had quadrupled the number of the state’s intensive care ventilators to 2,000 early last year. Of the 116 people in the intensive care unit (ICU) in NSW, 102 are not vaccinated. The three new deaths have increased the total death toll to 79. NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro has warned the state’s regions are “sitting on a knife’s edge“.
While Ms Berejiklian said the back-to-school plan for New South Wales will be revealed tomorrow. Prime Minister Scott Morrison will also unveil a plan tomorrow for vaccinating the country’s 12-to-15-year-old against Covid-19. Currently, children in this age group are not included in the national vaccination programme. But the worst is not over.
NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant has warned that the number of cases involving Covid-19 may not have reached their peak, and will continue to rise before transmissions begin to fall. He said – “My advice to government is that the case numbers may well continue to go up before we see the trajectory of downward transmission.”
Dr Chant said – “As I said, the factors that go into that model is how we’re adhering to the mobility restrictions, how we’re individually behaving. We have seen some deterioration in some of those metrics because people are obviously feeling so tired and frustrated with the length and duration of the restrictions.”
The increase of pressure on the NSW hospital system, which saw 80% of the state’s available intensive care beds now full, has forced the Australian Medical Association (AMA) to issue a warning to healthcare experts – “don’t think now is a safe time to relax restrictions”. However, State Premier Berejiklian has already announced the ease of restrictions beginning Sept 13 for fully vaccinated people.
Apparently, in addition to the current hour of exercice, fully vaccinated households in the local government areas of concern can gather outside for recreation for one hour within 5km of home between 5am and 9pm. Groups of five fully vaccinated people who live outside of the local government areas of concern can also gather outdoors within their local government areas or 5km from home.
But President of the AMA, Dr Danielle McMullen said – “We know that lockdowns are hard and that it’s difficult for mental health, it’s financially difficult for many people, but there is no safe relaxation at this point. At the moment, we still need to be staying the course and getting more vaccines in and getting those case numbers down. We don’t think now is a safe time to relax restrictions.”
Sydney is not the only city plagued with the new infections. Melbourne, the country’s second-largest city located in the state of Victoria, recorded 80 new cases in the past 24 hours – its largest spike in Covid cases since the second wave. Premier Daniel Andrews immediately went bonkers after he discovered some infected Victorians waited more than a week before getting tested.
He said – “One of the commonsense, practical things you can do if you have symptoms today – get tested today. Don’t, for heaven’s sake, as some have, wait eight days and literally infect everybody you come near in that period. Please don’t visit friends or family. The visitor that no one knows about is the Coronavirus. Don’t act in a selfish and irresponsible way.”
Canberra, meanwhile, has recorded 14 new cases of Covid-19, bringing the national capital’s total outbreak to 190. Deputy Chief Health Officer Vanessa Johnston said young people continue to make up a large proportion of infections, with 38% in people aged 17 and under. Chief Minister Andrew Barr, meanwhile, said “spring is going to be difficult”.
In general, more than half of the country’s 25 million populations are under strict stay-at-home orders. While the federal government is pushing ahead with the country’s reopening plans once vaccination rates reach 70%-80%, some states have rejected, hinting that they may continue with the lockdown policy given the rapid growth of cases in Sydney.
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August 26th, 2021 by financetwitter
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