Key posts
Overseas tourists finally return to Thai island of Phuket
By Jiraporn Kuhakan
Newly arrived overseas tourists on Thailand’s island of Phuket were able to roam free without quarantine on Friday for the first time in more than a year, as Thailand launched a special program for vaccinated visitors to the island.
Tourists swam in hotel pools and walked along Phuket’s postcard-perfect beaches after receiving a COVID-19 test result within 24 hours of arrival.
“This is the perfect place to just relax and clean our minds, our heads, after a long time,” said Sigal Baram, lying by the pool, who was visiting from Israel with her husband and friends. The group was among the first to arrive in the country.
The ‘Phuket Sandbox’ initiative allows free movement on the island for fully vaccinated tourists, with no quarantine required, although masks are required in most public places.
Authorities to address media later this morning
Premier Gladys Berejiklian, Health Minister Brad Hazzard, NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant and NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Gary Worboys will provide an update on COVID-19 at 11am this morning.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian will provide a COVID update on Saturday morning.Credit:Brook Mitchell
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young will hold a media conference at 10.30am.
Sydney GP backs experts over politicians when it comes to vaccines
By Roy Ward
A Sydney GP says she is “gratified” in the trust Australians have for their family doctor as they seek advice on COVID vaccinations.
Dr Penny Adams told Weekend Today her clinic in Sydney couldn’t use the phone lines each time advice changed for vaccines but she was touched so many people wanted to see their GP and make a plan for vaccination.
“Every time a politician says something different about vaccination and COVID, our phonelines run wild,” Dr Adams told Weekend Today on Saturday.
A Sydney GP says she is “gratified” in the trust Australians have for their family doctor as they seek advice on COVID vaccinations.Credit:Eddie Jim.
“It’s got to the stage where our phone lines have been jammed and we can’t even use our phones to call out anyone when there’s a new announcement. I am seeing a lot of patients who are coming in and wanting to make a separate appointment to talk through the vaccine options and what they should do.
“I’m actually very gratified by the trust that people have for their family GP in this complex time. And don’t worry, we’re keeping up to date with all these changes - the changing stats and information - but it’s very gratifying as a GP to see how much people trust us with the information.“
Dr Adams said she was following the latest advice from ATAGI and advising patients under 60 to get Pzifer and those over 60 to get the AstraZeneca.
But she added that no matter what vaccine Australians get, they will likely need booster shots in the years to come.
“I like to take my advice from medical experts rather than politicians,” Dr Adams said. “ATAGI, who are the head body on immunisation, they have recommended people 60 and over have recommended people 60 and over have AstraZeneca and under 60 have Pfizer.
“Now, there could be individual circumstances, you might be living in a household where you’ve got people who are immunocompromised or people who are younger.
“If you are keen to get the AZ rather than wait - and [are unclear] when is the Pfizer going to come online for younger people, you should see your GP and talk through your individual situation. I think basically we should stick to the guidelines.
“I have three adult children who are in the under-40 age group and I’ve recommended they wait for the Pfizer at this stage.”
Some Australians have been asking if they can have one AstraZeneca dose and a Pfizer dose as their second shot but Dr Adams said doctors were not accredited to administer a combination of doses and neither vaccine was better than the other.
“All of us are going to need boosters whether we’ve had Pfizer or AstraZeneca and so for people who have had two AstraZenecas, if they have a follow-up booster with Pfizer, when they become readily available towards the end of the year or early next year, and that’s the plan, that’s what’s been happening in the UK, you actually end up with better cover than if you had all Pfizer. So that is good news for the AstraZeneca vaccines.”
‘Potential to wipe out communities’: Queensland hotel failure dropped pandemic at the bush
By Zach Hope
For 17 months, the jurisdiction of Australia’s sickest people outmanoeuvred the worst pandemic in a century without a single case of community transmission.
There have been no deaths in the Northern Territory and almost all its 186 COVID-19 cases have been in the Howard Springs quarantine facility, an unused workers’ village outside Darwin that only a few years ago was considered by some to be a $600 million white elephant.
Queensland’s hotel quarantine leak sparked fears for the Northern Territory’s remote communities.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
It is now so famous as to wear a grand rebadging: The Centre for National Resilience.
Southern tourists with money banked from evaporated overseas holidays found in the Territory a tropical safe haven seemingly beyond the reach of COVID and the bothersome restrictions of home.
Accordingly, hotels and rentals filled up across the length of the Stuart Highway. Home prices, long in decline, jumped 20 per cent. Chief Minister Michael Gunner was fond of reminding voters the Territory was “Australia’s comeback capital”.
‘Crushing it, Victoria’
Victoria’s top health official has responded to the state’s continuing run of zero locally acquired cases.
Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton tweeted on Saturday morning saying simply: “Crushing it, Victoria.”
Victoria records no new cases
By Roy Ward
Victoria has recorded no new cases and no hotel quarantine cases in the last 24 hours.
In numbers released on Saturday morning, the state administered 19,623 vaccine doses yesterday and 24,247 test results were received.
Tracking every case in NSW’s COVID-19 clusters
By Pallavi Singhal and Matthew Absalom-Wong
From one initial case in the community, the latest COVID-19 strain jumped across Sydney through fleeting contact in shopping centres, at social gatherings and in cafes, restaurants and a hairdressing salon to infect more than 225 people in just over two weeks.
The Herald has tracked every single case to look at how the virus multiplied to lead to the first widespread lockdown since the national lockdown that began in March last year.
The data highlights a rapid chain of infection, with people who were unknowingly infectious in the community quickly seeding new clusters before they began to show symptoms or tested positive.
After the first case was confirmed in Sydney’s eastern suburbs on June 16 this year, it began to spread across Greater Sydney within days. By June 19, a person who had picked it up at Westfield Bondi Junction had spent time in Wollongong while infectious.
Photos of the week
The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age photographers have captured their respective cities as they deal with daily life, including the COVID lockdown. Here’s a small selection of their work, but you can view the full gallery here.
Daniela Minns, artist, blogger and parent of three, paints with, Celeste, 11 and Hugo, 8, coloured shaving cream on their glass sliding doors at home. She has recently written a post on ’101 activities to occupy your kids in lockdown’.Credit:Wolter Peeters
An empty Sydney Harbour Bridge on Sydney’s first day of lockdown.Credit:Sam Mooy
Crookwell grazier Charlie Prell: ″Fights about wind turbines come down to jealousy between those who don’t profit from them and those who do.″ Prell, a fourth-generation farmer and chairman of Farmers for Climate Action, believes that the replacement of Australia’s coal energy system with renewables represents an unprecedented potential windfall to regional Australia.Credit:Dominic Lorrimer
NSW stay-at-home orders lifted for some interstate visitors
Stay-at-home requirements for people in NSW who have been in Western Australia, the Northern Territory, and parts of Queensland have now been lifted.
NSW Health has revoked the stay-at-home orders for returned interstate travellers in line with the public health advice in those states.
“However, anyone entering NSW who has been in Western Australia, Northern Territory, Queensland and Victoria in the previous 14 days must still complete a declaration form confirming they have not been to any of the exposure venues. Restrictions still apply if people have been to an exposure venue,” a statement from NSW Health said.
Queensland has lifted stay-at-home orders for all regions except for Brisbane City and Moreton Bay, with stay-at-home orders still applicable to people who have been in the area since 30 June.
Western Australia and the Northern Territory have completely lifted their stay-at-home orders, with stay-at-home orders no longer applicable to people just because they have been to the regions.
NSW Health urges anyone who has been interstate in the past 14 days to regularly check the relevant state websites for recently added venues of concern linked to the latest cases.
Stay-at-home orders are still in effect across all of the Greater Sydney region, including the Blue Mountains, Central Coast, Wollongong and Shellharbour.
People who have been in the Greater Sydney region (including the Blue Mountains, Central Coast, Wollongong and Shellharbour) on or after June 21 must also follow the stay-at-home orders for a period of 14 days after leaving Greater Sydney.
COVID too dangerous to be treated like flu
By Aisha Dow and Rachel Clun
Epidemiologists have disputed Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s claim that coronavirus will be able to be treated”like the flu” when Australia reaches a high vaccination rate, saying contact tracing and widespread mask wearing may be needed for years to avoid excess deaths.
Infectious diseases experts are optimistic that the nation will be able to reach what Mr Morrison described as the third stage of a four-stage pathway out of the pandemic, when vaccinated people can start freely travelling overseas and lockdowns are avoided.
This scenario is estimated to be feasible when 80 per cent or more of the population is fully vaccinated, although official modelling of the vaccination rates needed to move to the next phases is underway.
Epidemiologists including Nancy Baxter, head of the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, have thrown cold water on the assertion that coronavirus could be treated like the flu. The seasonal flu has typically been managed with a vaccination program, and little else.
Most Viewed in National
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiemh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnNtaC5jb20uYXUvbmF0aW9uYWwvYXVzdHJhbGlhLWNvdmlkLWxvY2tkb3duLWNvdWxkLWV4dGVuZC1pbi1zeWRuZXktYXMtY2FzZS1udW1iZXJzLXN1cmdlLTIwMjEwNzAzLXA1ODZocC5odG1s0gF6aHR0cHM6Ly9hbXAuc21oLmNvbS5hdS9uYXRpb25hbC9hdXN0cmFsaWEtY292aWQtbG9ja2Rvd24tY291bGQtZXh0ZW5kLWluLXN5ZG5leS1hcy1jYXNlLW51bWJlcnMtc3VyZ2UtMjAyMTA3MDMtcDU4NmhwLmh0bWw?oc=5
2021-07-02 23:37:28Z
52781706370189
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Australia COVID: Lockdown could extend in Sydney as case numbers set to surge, Victoria records no new cases - The Sydney Morning Herald"
Post a Comment