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Victoria records 12 new locally acquired cases of COVID-19
By Broede Carmody
Victoria’s daily coronavirus numbers are in.
The state has recorded 12 new, locally acquired cases of COVID-19. There were 13 in total. However, we already knew about one of those cases (a man from Mildura in the state’s north-west).
The Victorian Department of Health says all of the new cases are linked to current outbreaks. There was just one case detected in hotel quarantine.
Those numbers are off the back of yesterday’s 54,839 coronavirus tests.
Sydney construction sites fall silent
By Broede Carmody
Construction sites across Sydney are silent this morning given tradies have downed their tools in a bid to curb new coronavirus infections.
Photographer Nick Moir has been out and about this morning documenting the empty streets and workplaces in the city’s west.
An empty construction site in Fairfield, in Sydney’s west. Credit:Nick Moir
The Australian Constructors Associations says the NSW government’s construction ban is “excessive and completely unnecessary”. The shutdown is estimated to cost the state’s economy $1.4 billion.
However, as readers of this blog will know, popular building zones have featured among the official list of coronavirus exposure sites as recently as last week.
Some more information on Hopkins’ visa cancellation
By Broede Carmody and Jennifer Duke
As we reported earlier, Australian border officials have cancelled the visa of far-right British commentator Katie Hopkins after she bragged about flouting hotel quarantine rules on social media.
Ms Hopkins was due to film an upcoming celebrity spin-off of the Seven Network’s popular reality series Big Brother. However, the network has since cut her loose.
Katie Hopkins mocks the hotel quarantine safety rules upon her arrival in Australia.Credit:Instagram
Further details have since come to light on how Ms Hopkins came to be in the country. It turns out that international and interstate Big Brother contestants were granted a travel exemption by the NSW state government.
As part of those arrangements, the NSW government approved hotel quarantine for the contestants above the existing cap.
“There’s no place in Australia for visa holders who would deliberately endanger others,” Minister for Home Affairs Karen Andrews said in a statement.
“Entry to Australia brings responsibilities and the community rightly expects better. Those who don’t live up to the standards can expect to have their visas cancelled and to be removed.”
To date, Border Force officials have already removed seven non-Australian citizens from the country who were found to have breached COVID-19 health directions.
Legal bill for Victoria’s hotel quarantine probe tops $15 million
By Annika Smethurst
The Victorian government spent more than $15 million on legal representation for its inquiry into the state’s botched hotel quarantine program.
New documents show the Department of Justice and Community spent $2.1 million on lawyers from corporate law firm Allens, evidence provided to Parliament’s public accounts and estimates committee shows reveals.
A guest in hotel quarantine at the Tullamarine Holiday Inn in April.Credit:Jason South
Separately, Victoria Police racked up a legal bill of more than $892,000 at global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright.
Premier Daniel Andrews commissioned former judge Jennifer Coate to head an inquiry into hotel quarantine after several private security guards, without adequate training in infection control, contracted COVID-19 last year, spread it into the community and sparked the state’s deadly second wave.
Read the full story here.
NSW ‘paying the price’ of not going into harder lockdown sooner: Fitzgibbon
By Broede Carmody
Federal Labor MP Joel Fitzgibbon, who represents the NSW seat of Hunter, was on Seven’s Sunrise earlier this morning and didn’t hold back when he was asked about Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s handling of Sydney’s current outbreak.
Labor MP Joel Fitzgibbon. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Here’s what he had to say:
“The government response in New South Wales is at best vague and confused. It’s the lockdown you have when you’re not having a lockdown. People are hurting very badly, they don’t understand the rules and you’ll see in the newspapers that even the Premier is struggling to interpret and comply with her own lockdown rules.
“I think the most effective lockdowns are the fast and comprehensive ones. We missed the opportunity and are paying the price. If we’re going to look down, people and businesses need to be adequately compensated.
“People are being forced to flout the rules because they’re financially desperate.”
As we reported earlier this morning, there are several changes to the lockdown in Greater Sydney today for the construction industry as well as schools in a bid to curb new infections.
Sydney has been in lockdown since late June.
NSW construction ban ‘over the top’, says industry
By Daniella White
The Australian Constructors Association says the NSW government’s ban on construction work has come “completely out of left field”.
Tradies will have to down tools from today, except to undertake urgent repairs and emergency construction, under the new rules introduced to help curb growing COVID-19 numbers.
Association chief executive Jon Davies said the shutdown was “excessive and completely unnecessary”.
“We were having fairly constructive discussions with the government around how do we keep construction sites open ... and then on Saturday morning we got the news none of us were expecting,” he told 2GB on Monday.
“We understand the government’s desire to get on top of this latest outbreak but we think that they’ve really gone over the top with shutting down the whole industry.”
The association represents construction and infrastructure contracting companies.
Katie Hopkins’ visa cancelled
By Broede Carmody
The federal government has cancelled the visa of far-right British commentator Katie Hopkins.
Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews says Ms Hopkins will be kicked out of the country as soon as possible.
Minister for Home Affairs Karen Andrews. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
“The fact that she was out there boasting about breaching quarantine was appalling,” Ms Andrews told ABC News Breakfast just moments ago.
“It was a slap in the face for all those Australians who are currently in lockdown, and it’s just unacceptable behaviour. So, personally, I’m very pleased she’ll be leaving.
“We will be getting her out of the country as soon as we can possibly arrange that. So I’m hopeful that it will happen imminently.”
Ms Hopkins has previously called for a “final solution” (a reference to the Nazi policy of murdering Jews) and labelled migrants “cockroaches”. Asked why she was as given a visa in the first place over an Australian trying to return home, Ms Andrews said the far-right commentator was allowed in under “established processes and procedures” given she was due to film a TV show.
“So she came in here on the basis of potential benefit to the economy,” the Home Affairs Minister said. “[But] she’s clearly not someone that we want to keep in this country for a second longer than we have to.”
Yesterday, Channel Seven dumped Ms Hopkins from its upcoming series of Big Brother after the commercial television network learned the British national had been boasting on social media about flaunting infection controls in NSW hotel quarainte.
Sydney has been in lockdown for more than three weeks and so far four people have died as a result of the state’s current outbreak.
Trams, regional supermarket among Victoria’s new exposure sites
By Broede Carmody
More than 20 tier-1 exposure sites were added to Victoria’s official list late last night.
Among them are eight locations in Mildura, in the state’s north-west, which has recorded its first case of COVID-19 in more than a year. The case is linked to the MCG cluster.
A bakery in Wycheproof, in north-west Victoria, is among the latest exposure sites.
Anyone who visited the Mildura Coles, on the corner of Sanmateo Avenue and Fifteenth Street, on Monday, July 12 between 11.15am and 12.45pm is considered a close contact of the coronavirus case and must immediately get tested and isolate for 14 days regardless of the result.
In Melbourne, tram routes 48 and 75 have also been listed as exposure sites for Wednesday, July 14 and Thursday, July 15 respectively.
Visit the Victorian government’s website for the full list of exposure sites.
Public transport services in Sydney slashed
By Alexandra Smith, Tom Rabe and Jordan Baker
Public transport services in Sydney will be slashed as part of a renewed push to curb COVID-19 infection rates in the community.
With the number of people infectious in the community continuing to hover in the high 20s – reaching 27 on Sunday – the NSW government moved to further slow the spread of the Delta strain across metropolitan Sydney.
Fairfield train station in Sydney’s west on Saturday.Credit:Brook Mitchell
In addition to a range of new restrictions, including a ban on all construction work and with non-essential retail now closed, public transport services will be cut by up to 50 per cent for the first time during the pandemic.
NSW Transport chief operations officer Howard Collins said the changes would come into effect on Monday with services across all modes reduced by between 30 and 50 per cent for at least two weeks.
Delta spreads deeper into regional Victoria, upends AFL
By Annika Smethurst, Roy Ward and Andrew Wu
The highly contagious Delta variant of COVID-19 has spread further into regional Victoria, upended AFL teams and cast doubt over the state’s chance of emerging from lockdown on Tuesday night.
Mildura in the state’s north-west recorded its first case in 15 months on Sunday after a man in his 30s went to Mildura Base Public Hospital on Saturday night and later returned a positive result.
Queues at the testing clinic in Mildura on Sunday afternoon.
On Sunday night, Greater Western Sydney Giants stars Toby Greene and Matt de Boer withdrew from their AFL match against the Sydney Swans and were forced into isolation, in chaotic scenes at Metricon Stadium on the Gold Coast.
Victoria’s lockdown is scheduled to end at 11.59pm on Tuesday but Burnet Institute epidemiologist Mike Toole said the thought of opening up then was “a bit optimistic” due to daily case numbers still being in the mid-teens.
He estimated it could be seven to 10 days from when lockdown began that restrictions could start to ease, whereas it could be four to six weeks before Sydney restrictions would roll back.
Read the full story here.
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2021-07-18 22:25:11Z
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