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Coronavirus Australia: Woman dies of COVID-19 in south west Sydney as NSW records 98 new cases

The West Australian
People are seen wearing face masks in a lane way in Melbourne, Sunday, July 18, 2021.
Camera IconPeople are seen wearing face masks in a lane way in Melbourne, Sunday, July 18, 2021. Credit: JAMES ROSS/AAPIMAGE

South Australia’s cluster of coronavirus cases has grown to three as the state prepares for tough new restrictions in a bid to contain the latest outbreak.

An 81-year-old man and two of his close contacts, a man and a woman in their 50s, have tested positive for the virus.

The woman is known to be the elderly man’s daughter.

More than a dozen other close contact are in quarantine along with hundreds or potentially thousands of people who visited a growing list of exposure sites, including a suburban shopping centre.

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Premier Steven Marshall says five of those close contacts have tested negative so far but authorities are very concerned about the current situation.

“We only have one chance to get this right. Our focus from day one has been to go hard and to go early to minimise the level of disruption,” he said.

“We’ve got to respond quickly.”

New SA restrictions include a density change to one person to every four square metres in all venues, while all team and contact sport is to be cancelled.

All dining will need to be seated with a ban imposed on dancing and singing.

Masks will be required in all indoor public areas, including shopping malls.

Fitness centres will be closed along with other non-essential retail outlets. Supermarkets and pharmacies and other essential businesses will continue to trade.

Family gatherings will be restricted to 10 people but schools will stay open.

The new rules will apply from midnight on Monday and will be reviewed on Friday.

Removalists’ mum fifth person to die in NSW outbreak

A south west Sydney woman in her 50s has died after contracting COVID-19, becoming the fifth person in NSW to die amid the current outbreak.

The Green Valley woman was reportedly the mother of the two removalists who travelled to central-west NSW, including to Orange, while one was known to be COVID-positive.

Her body was found in her home on Monday morning, and NSW Police said a report would be prepared for the coroner.

The woman is the 61st person to die of COVID-19 in NSW since early 2020.

Virus case confirmed in South Australia

An 81-year-old Adelaide man has been confirmed as having COVID-19 after presenting at a suburban hospital over the weekend with virus symptoms.

The new case is likely to lead to tougher local virus restrictions on Monday but officials say they are not considering a major lockdown at this stage.

The man had previously travelled to Argentina with his daughter and had returned to Australia through NSW, where he spent 14 days in quarantine.

He spent a further 10 days in hospital in NSW after suffering a fall before returning to SA on July 8.

Premier Steven Marshall says the man had received one vaccine dose while in Argentina, but it was not known what type.

His daughter and 15 other close contacts have been placed in quarantine, with both the woman and her son so far testing negative.

Other test results are still pending.

“We don’t draw any conclusions as to where this infection came from. We simply don’t know and it is very early days,” Mr Marshall said.

“Our primary concern at the moment is putting everyone who may have come into contact with this person into quarantine as soon as possible.”

Mr Marshall said the emergency department at Modbury Hospital remained closed while a risk assessment was performed and would be progressively opened when it was safe to do so.

Some staff have been placed in quarantine.

VICTORIA TO EXTEND LOCKDOWN AS 12 NEW CASES REPORTED

Victoria will stay in lockdown beyond the original five days after recording 12 more cases and exposure sites appearing across the state.

Premier Daniel Andrews says he plans to announce the length of the extension on Tuesday morning.

There were 13 new local infections in the 24 hours to Monday morning, one of which was a case in Mildura, previously announced by authorities.

Mr Andrews said there were too many chains of transmission for the lockdown to lift at the original time of midnight Tuesday.

“We are running alongside this virus, but we’re not yet in front of it,” he told reporters on Monday.

“We’ve gone hard and early and I think we have avoided, in fact I know we have avoided something altogether worse.”

Mr Andrews said testing figures, exposure sites and test results on Monday would guide the extension duration.

All the new cases are linked to the current outbreaks of the Delta variant in the state, which originated in NSW.

Among the cases is a household contact of the Mildura case revealed on Sunday, two are Trinity Grammar students, another is a close contact of a Phillip Island case, one is a case linked to AAMI Park and another was at the Euro 2020 viewing at Crafty Squire pub in the Melbourne CBD.

“That final case that Crafty Squire is of concern. It is absolutely an example of how quickly this variant is moving in the short time we are seeing between exposure and then being infectious and onward transmission,” Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton told reporters.

“So while we acted as conservatively as possible in declaring Crafty Squire a high-risk venue, we didn’t necessarily expect there to be transmission there. The fact it has occurred some 30 hours after being exposed is absolutely a feature of the Delta variant.”

With more cases appearing connected to the Melbourne Cricket Ground and AAMI Park cases, contact definitions have been expanded and authorities are asking for more people to go and get tested.

Another four cases have also been recorded on Monday, that will be put on Tuesday’s figures.

Victoria also recorded one new infection acquired overseas, currently in hotel quarantine, bringing its total number of active cases to 81.

NSW RECORDS 98 NEW COVID-19 CASES

NSW has recorded 98 new local cases of COVID-19 and 37 people were circulating in the community during some or all of their infectious period.

The cases were diagnosed from 75,845 tests carried out in the 24 hours to 8pm on Sunday.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the number of circulating cases was the number she was “really keen to nudge” lower.

“We need to get ahead of that number in order to reduce the number of cases in the community to zero,” she said on Monday.

The premier has warned there could be a lag of between five or six days until the number of COVID-19 cases begins to drop, after the government introduced tough new restrictions.

It’s estimated the tougher measures have left around 600,000 people without work.

Tradies across Greater Sydney have now downed tools, with construction sites shutting down for two weeks.

It’s the first time the construction industry has been shut anywhere in Australia since the pandemic began and state Labor is calling on the federal government to re-introduce JobKeeper to help businesses and workers survive the harsher measures announced on Saturday.

Labor says the move will cost the NSW economy at least $700 million per week and affect at least 250,000 workers.

People living in Greater Sydney and surrounding regions are in the fourth week of a lockdown after the government imposed a raft of new restrictions, including the ban on all construction work, the closure of non-essential retail outlets not including supermarkets, pharmacies, banks and liquor stores.

Public transport has been scaled back and is now operating on a Sunday timetable, while stay-at-home orders have been tightened in the Fairfield, Canterbury-Bankstown and Liverpool areas with locals not allowed to leave until July 30 - unless they are essential workers.

QUEENSLAND RECORDS NO NEW LOCAL CASES

Queensland has recorded no new locally acquired cases overnight, while two have been detected in hotel quarantine.

The news comes as it was revealed that close to 30 truck drivers have arrived at Queensland’s border from interstate hotspots without a valid pass, with a more stringent testing regime flagged to prevent another virus outbreak.

Police intercepted 226 heavy vehicles over the weekend operation, 83 of which did not have a valid border pass.

Seven drivers were issued infringement notices, while one was ordered into hotel quarantine.

“That particular driver had completely falsified records, was not cooperative with our investigation and in fact had come out of a hotspot,” Deputy Commissioner Steve Gollschewski said on Monday.

Given the risk of the delta variant spreading from interstate, Acting Premier Steven Miles said increasing compliance was a priority.

“It’s absolutely critical for all of us that we improve compliance in that industry, particularly given that it appears to have been the vector by which the Sydney outbreak has reached Melbourne,” he said on Monday.

Queensland requires freight drivers to be tested every seven days, but Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said a period of low case numbers may have led to complacency.

“I can understand why that lapsed when there weren’t any cases anywhere in Australia, but it’s important that the requirement is immediately back in place,” she said.

“It’s important that requirement is immediately back in place so that any freight driver who arrives in Queensland from any declared hot spot, which today is all of Victoria and Greater Sydney... has had a test done in the seven days prior to them entering.”

Given NSW now has a requirement for those leaving the three “most concerning“ local government areas of Fairfield, Canterbury-Bankstown and Liverpool to test every three days, Dr Young said she would be looking to tighten the rules even more.

“I will be working with the freight industry to ask them to put in a process that anyone who’s been in any of those three LGAs in the previous 14 days, that they give evidence of a negative test result prior to crossing the border into Queensland,” she said.

STATE-BY-STATE BREAKDOWN

TODAY

NSW - 98 NEW LOCAL CASES

VICTORIA - 12 NEW LOCAL CASES

WA - TBA

QLD - ZERO NEW LOCAL CASES

ACT - TBA

NT - TBA

SA - THREE NEW LOCAL CASES

TAS - TBA

YESTERDAY

NSW - 105 NEW LOCAL CASES

VICTORIA - 16 NEW LOCAL CASES

WA - ZERO NEW LOCAL CASES

QLD - ZERO NEW LOCAL CASES

ACT - ZERO NEW LOCAL CASES

NT - ZERO NEW LOCAL CASES

SA - ZERO NEW LOCAL CASES

TAS - ZERO NEW LOCAL CASES

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