Received

Details
Category: Received
Hits: 122

Darwin and surrounding areas will enter lockdown for 48 hours following four new COVID-19 cases linked to a central Australian mine.

None were locally transmitted but Chief Minister Michael Gunner says the outbreak represents the Northern Territory's biggest crisis since the beginning of the pandemic.

He says the cases involve the highly contagious Delta variant and more infections are expected.

The lockdown, which begins at 1pm on Sunday, follows revelations that 900 workers who left Granites Mine 540km northwest of Alice Springs where a man tested positive, flew to Brisbane, Perth and Alice Springs.

Of 244 potentially exposed people who remained in the NT, Mr Gunner says 15 who arrived in Darwin since Friday remain unaccounted for.

As a result, there was a need to "assume the worst, assume they are positive and assume that there are exposure sites".

Mr Gunner says one of the four detected positive cases had travelled to NSW and was being managed by authorities there.

Two from the cohort were still isolating at the mine in the Tanami Desert but would be evacuated to the Territory's Centre for National Resilience at Howard Springs.

The fourth case was one of the mine worker's close contacts who lived in Palmerston, south of Darwin, and had tested positive to COVID-19 while in the Centre for National Resilience.

Mr Gunner stressed that the cases were not considered community transmissions.

He said the Palmerston case involved a 64-year-old employee of the mine who had travel by plane to Darwin on Friday.

He was picked up by his wife and went straight home to Palmerston.

His only other travel was to collect his adult daughter from her workplace and he did not leave the car.

His wife and daughter had no additional movements.

When interviewed on Saturday, the man told contact tracers he was isolating at home with his wife and daughter and had developed symptoms.

From there, he was immediately tested and taken to the Centre for National Resilience.

Mr Gunner said two contacts of the original mine case were still to be located.

"We are urgently tracking them down but again ... we are assuming the worst.

"Everything we see points to this being the highly infectious Delta variant," he added.

"We are expecting more cases and we are not expecting them to be as clear as ... this morning.

"There is a stronger chance that any new cases will have exposure sites which makes the job of tracing and testing much bigger."

Darwin, Palmerston and Lichfield local government areas will enter full lockdown for 48 hours.

Residents within are only permitted to leave home for medical treatment, to obtain essential goods and services, for work considered essential, one hour of exercise a day or to provide care.

Anyone who leaves home must wear a mask.

© AAP 2021

Details
Category: Received
Hits: 122

Ronaldo Mulitalo has had his State of Origin debut denied on the morning of the game after Queensland Rugby League withdrew the winger citing concerns over his eligibility.

The New Zealand-born talent was in camp all week as 19th man before receiving a late call-up to the side when Reece Walsh suffered an injury during Saturday's captain's run.

No sooner was Mulitalo's eligibility being officially questioned by the NSWRL after an article surfaced from 2019 claiming he moved to Queensland just shy of his 14th birthday.

Under current eligibility requirements, players must have lived in either NSW or Queensland prior to their 13th birthday.

The NRL executive met on Saturday night before the QRL officially withdrew the 21-year-old just hours before kick-off at Suncorp Stadium.

The Maroons believed the Cronulla winger was eligible because he had already played for Queensland's under-18 and under-20 sides, albeit potentially only because of administrative oversight.

The QRL will present a case to the NRL in coming days that will argue for his Queensland eligibility.

It incredibly left coach Paul Green scrambling for a game-day replacement with Brisbane winger Xavier Coates called in for an extraordinary recall after he was dropped in the aftermath to the game one loss.

Due to COVID-19 protocols and public health orders, the NRL advised the QRL that Mulitalo's replacement must be an eligible player from a Queensland-based NRL club.

The Maroons are already without injured hooker Harry Grant and fullbacks Kalyn Ponga, AJ Brimson and Walsh, who was poised to debut after just seven NRL games.

NSW trounced Queensland 50-6 in Townsville and will start heavy favourites to secure the series in Brisbane.

© AAP 2021

Details
Category: Received
Hits: 113

NSW has recorded 30 new locally acquired cases of coronavirus on the first day of a 14-day lockdown for large parts of the state.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian has confirmed all 30 cases have been linked to the Bondi outbreak, while 11 of them were self-isolating throughout their infectious period.

A further three cases were in isolation for part of their infectious period.

The new cases bring the outbreak to 110, while a further two local cases remain under investigation.

More than 52,000 people were tested and 12,881 received a vaccine dose in the 24 hours to 8pm on Saturday.

NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant said 10 of the new cases are linked to Great Ocean Foods in Marrickville, bringing that cluster to 11.

One case linked to the seafood distributor is a flight crew attendant with Virgin Australia who tested positive on Saturday night.

Anyone who received a delivery from the business between June 21 and June 25, plus their household members, are being urged to contact NSW Health, immediately isolate and get tested.

Other cases of concern to authorities are a person who tested positive after attending the COVID-19 vaccination centre at Westmead Hospital on June 22, and a close contact of a worker at the Granites gold mine in central Australia, who tested positive in the Hunter New England region of NSW.

"I can assure the community that this case was not infectious in the community and did not present any risk to the community of NSW," Dr Chant said.

She said the case is believed to have contracted the virus in Queensland.

Despite the jump in new cases, Dr Chant is reassured they are all linked.

She said the lockdown of Greater Sydney, the Blue Mountains, Central Coast, Wollongong and Shellharbour, which is scheduled to end at 11.59pm on July 9, would be sufficient to bring the outbreak out of control.

"Obviously, we have to be very cautious and look at the data every day but if we all take this very seriously, we maintain those testing numbers, then two weeks may be sufficient to have that comfort," Dr Chant said.

Ms Berejiklian said she expected case numbers to increase in the coming days, given the infectiousness of the Delta variant.

"Case numbers are likely to increase even beyond what we have seen today because we are seeing that people in isolation, unfortunately, would have already transmitted to all their house contacts," she told reporters on Sunday morning.

"The measure of our success won't be so much the people in isolation get the disease but the measure of our success will be to limit the number of people who went out and about into the community with the disease."

NSW residents in the lockdown zone are only allowed to leave home for work that can't be done at home, to shop for essential items, for exercise, to seek medical care or for caregiving or compassionate reasons.

Anyone in NSW who has been to Greater Sydney since June 21 is also being asked to stay at home for the lockdown period.

Exercise outdoors is allowed in groups of up to 10 and COVID-safe funerals can proceed with up to 100 people.

Weddings are allowed on Sunday with restrictions in place but must be cancelled from Monday.

Asked if she delayed calling a lockdown because she wanted to keep her reputation as a premier who keeps the state open, Ms Berejiklian replied: "I do not regret a single decision we have taken."

"I have never cared about what people think about me, I care about keeping people safe," she said.

Meanwhile, NSW Police issued more than 15 fines on the first night of lockdown.

A family from Sydney's eastern suburbs were fined for travelling to the Hunter Valley for a sporting event, while a cafe owner and her staff in Illawarra were fined for refusing to wear masks.

© AAP 2021

Details
Category: Received
Hits: 90

Deputy NSW Premier John Barilaro is not expecting an escalation in virus infection numbers after parts of his state went to a 14-lockdown.

Premier Gladys Berejikilian ordered the lockdown of Greater Sydney, the Blue Mountains, the Central Coast and Wollongong as the virus spread from the initial Bondi cluster.

Mr Barilaro is expecting similar numbers to those seen on Saturday and the day before that. There were 12 new COVID-19 cases reported on Saturday, taking the total number in the outbreak to 80 cases.

"This is what we thought would happen, that the numbers would be consistent, but what the issue is, is that the numbers, even though they are consistent on larger tests, is that they are coming from other parts of the city," he told Sky News' Sunday Agenda program.

"That why it is important that we locked down the whole city."

He is confident the two-week lockdown will be sufficient to suppress the virus.

However, he wasn't about to blame the outbreak on the federal government and the slow vaccine rollout.

"I think we are a victim or our own success for too long ... so there has been a level of complacency in the community to get the vaccine," Mr Barilaro said.

But he added there has been a lot of debate about AstraZeneca and that some of the narrative from the federal government hasn't helped.

NSW Health has issued an alert for passengers who travelled on five Virgin flights to and from Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, and the Gold Coast on Friday and Saturday after a flight attendant tested positive to the virus.

NSW residents in the lockdown zone are only allowed to leave home for work that can't be done at home, to shop for essential items, for exercise, to seek medical care or for care-giving or compassionate reasons.

Anyone in NSW who has been to Greater Sydney since June 21 is also being asked to stay at home for the lockdown period.

Exercise outdoors is allowed in groups of up to 10, and COVID-safe funerals can proceed with up to 100 people.

Weddings are allowed on Sunday with restrictions in place, but must be cancelled from Monday.

Ms Berejiklian urged people to abide by rules, saying police "will not be afraid to throw the book at anybody who does the wrong thing".

Health Minister Brad Hazzard warned people not to try to flee the lockdown areas either.

"If a police officer detects that you're there, and there's say five people in the car, that's potentially, if he decides you're going to court: $11,000 times five, a maximum fine (of) $55,000," Mr Hazzard said on Saturday

The premier urged people not to panic buy or stress about money, with shops to remain open and financial assistance to be available.

"It's never easy when all of us have to face these circumstances, but we're all in the same situation," she said.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says special payments of $500 per week will kick in on Thursday for eligible people impacted by the lockdown.

© AAP 2021