COVID-19: NSW lockdown extended for a week to Friday 16 July – Confirmed

At a press conference at 11 am this morning, Gladys Berejiklian, the New South Wales Premier confirmed an extension of the current lockdown affecting Greater Sydney and associated regions will be extended for another week, taking it through until midnight on Friday 16 July 2021.

This means that students will not be going back to school as scheduled on Monday 12 July.

NSW has recorded 27 new cases of COVID-19. Only 13 of those were already in isolation for the full infectious period. A total of 45,000 people were tested in the 24 hours to 8 pm Tuesday.

Only 18 of those 27 new cases have so far been linked to know clusters, which leaves 9 unlinked, which is not good.

There are a total of 37 patients in hospital, 7 in ICU, and 2 of those on ventilators. Also, the age range of patients ranges from 30s through to 70s.

Where?

The suburbs ‘of concern’ according to NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant are:

• Bass Hill
• Bossley Park
• Canley Vale
• Fairfield
• Greenfield Park
• Smithfield
• St Johns Park
• West Hoxton

The concern is centred on the experience of infection occuring within households before testing has confirmed a case. The result is people are out in the community who are infections, but not tested.

Dr Chant confirmed that of the 27 new cases, only 13 were in isolation for the full period of infectiousness. 7 were in isolation for part of the period, and 7 were not in isolation at all.

You can check updated exposure sites here.

Limiting spread

Gladys accented that the lockdown is designed to stop spread, and she gave a range of examples of what not to do during the lockdown, which includes visiting relatives and friends.

“It is extremely transmissible and more contagious than any other … form of the virus that we’ve seen. We don’t want to be in a situation where we are constantly having to move between lockdown, no lockdown, lockdown, no lockdown.”

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian

Schools

Although schools are ‘closed’ they will remain open for families that need them. All staff and students, year 7 and upwards will need to wear masks. Schools in regional NSW will return to face to face teaching, but will use QR codes, and discourage non-essential visitors.

Disaster payment

The federal parliament by declaring the lockdown eligible for a disaster payment, which is available 8 days into a lockdown.

For those in financial distress, there is assistance available. You may be eligible for an AU$500 disaster payment, which you can apply for here.

2PAXfly Takeout

This is another timely reminder to wear your seatbelt when seated. Holding you close to your seat will protect you from the sort of injuries sustained on this flight, when unsecured passengers flew to the ceiling of the aircraft, and then came crashing down once the ‘drop’ ceased.

The hope will be that this is an anomaly – a ‘freak accident’ in casual parlance. If it is a systemic error either mechanical or electronic, then this is a larger concern for the airlines that fly Boeing Dreamliner 787 aircraft. Let’s hope it isn’t. If it is, it will pile on the woes to Boeing’s existing stack.

No surprises here. With cases still out in the community, this was definitely on the cards. Good to warn parents who would have been sending their kids off to school on Monday, but will now have to supervise them at home for remote learning.

We have done nearly two – another week – easy-peasy. Let’s just hope that an additional week is enough to get this outbreak under control. If Gladys is true to her word, we are going to need to see a dramatic reduction in cases overall, and especially cases occurring outside of isolation.

Adding another week to take us to a total of a month in lockdown would not surprise me.

Don’t go out unless you have to, keep your distance, get vaccinated and wear a mask.