Australia's Covid-19 crisis reaches new level as all of NSW goes into lockdown

By Catherine Taylor, ABC

Analysis - New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced 466 new case numbers yesterday, a pandemic record for the state, and she followed up by announcing tightened lockdown limits.

A 5km curb on travel from home, permits needed for any essential travel outside the Sydney region, registering a singles bubble partner for residents of local government areas of concern, and significantly increased penalties for violating the rules laid out the new state of play.

There was really only one question worth asking: will it be enough?

The first answer came only a few hours later: not yet.

From 5pm, the whole of NSW - the regional areas not already under stay-at-home orders anyway - joined the lockdown club.

The bad news came thick and fast this week, delivering the kind of Covid-19 firsts that everyone had hoped to avoid.

And it ends with those in Greater Sydney eyeballing a new week under its toughest lockdown yet.

Covid-19 spreads and spreads

While Berejiklian kept NSW residents hopeful that steady progress with vaccinations offered light at the end of the tunnel, that tunnel began to look very long indeed.

After seven weeks of lockdown, Berejiklian made it clear yesterday that the halfway point is still in the future, repeating her message from Thursday that September and October will be "the most challenging couple of months for NSW".

But the bad news wasn't just confined to Sydney: Australians really are all in this together.

Even Australians who usually live overseas will find it harder to leave this country as rules governing who can return to their overseas homes were tightened again this week.

Covid has advanced to the vulnerable communities of Dubbo and Walgett in NSW's west, Melbourne had its stay-at-home orders extended, and Canberra, the only major east coast city without an outbreak this year, didn't stay that way.

Canberra had been free of Covid since the early days of the pandemic but when a positive case popped up on Thursday, Chief Minister Andrew Barr said he only had to look at Greater Sydney's battle with the virus to decide his next move.

"We have said throughout the outbreak in Greater Sydney that we would act quickly and decisively," he said as he announced a seven-day lockdown that is in several ways tighter than that facing Sydneysiders.

"We have seen that a short and immediate lockdown limits the potential spread of the virus, and is the best path to avoiding longer and more damaging lockdowns."

But there was some good news too.

A $320 payment was confirmed for those in NSW who miss work because of quarantine requirements and steady uptake of vaccinations in NSW means numbers are now tracking to have 50 percent of eligible adults fully vaccinated by the end of September.

And on Thursday, NSW had another record testing day with nearly 152,000 Covid-19 tests in the previous 24 hours.

The virus is definitely out there, but now it's more likely to be found.

Northern exposure

In Queensland, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk was spruiking the success of this strategy, announcing that for the first time Brisbane's Indooroopilly school cluster had stabilised, as had the outbreak in Cairns that had everyone worried.

"Who would have thought a week ago we would have been in this position today?" Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said. "A week ago, I think everyone was worried about where we would end up with this cluster … And Queenslanders absolutely rose to that challenge."

But Palaszczuk said she remained concerned about "virus creep" from NSW and without doubt, a darker Covid story developed in NSW regional towns this week and led to Saturday's state-wide lockdown announcement.

Where Barr and Palaszczuk were making a show of setting expectations high and playing by the rules, Sydney man Zoran Radovanovic appears to have had no such compulsion, and it's made him one of the most criticised men in Australia right now.

Radovanovic allegedly travelled to Byron Bay and its hinterland towns with two children on 31 July, in apparent violation of the NSW stay-at-home orders. But wait, maybe not because it was still allowed to travel to inspect property or visit a second home.

Exactly what happened, and whether buying a holiday house is a legit reason for a 760km trip, will be argued in court next month when Radovanovic - and one of his sons - are due to appear on charges of breaching public health orders.

What we do know is that Radovanovic did not believe he was a health risk when he arrived in Byron but his infection led to a snap lockdown of Northern Rivers communities as the area moved fast to prevent spread.

Contact tracers struggled to track the movements of the man and his children, who are now being treated at St Vincent's Hospital in Lismore, because they failed to check in to the venues they visited before testing positive to Covid-19 on 8 August.

Hospital chief executive Lynne Weir said the community was notified "quickly" but the potential for more cases to emerge remains a threat.

"As you can imagine, over a whole week, we all forget where we have been and as we talk to people and think about it then more information comes out and as soon as that does happen then we put that additional information up on the website," she said.

NSW finally buys in to the 'ring of steel'

The question of whether the scope of the Greater Sydney lockdown restrictions were appropriate to stop the grinding spread of Delta through the city and beyond was on everyone's mind this week and Berejiklian announced tightened rules following National Cabinet on Friday.

There are still plenty of questions.

Will new rules around leaving Greater Sydney be similar to the "ring of steel" used in Victoria last year? Should there be a curfew? Canberra has just imposed one and it was a feature of Melbourne's long 2020 lockdown too.

Should Sydney residents be allowed to travel to inspect property or visit a second home? Should more businesses be closed? Should time outdoors be limited alongside reducing the distance from home?

Berejiklian is hoping the additional restrictions announced yesterday will address these fears.

"Our nation needs to come to grips with what Delta means ... and be real about it," she said on Friday.

"We have to accept that part of the challenge we have in NSW is because of a lack of compliance and part of that challenge is because Delta is very different to anything we've seen before".

The regions are under threat

Frustration with those flouting lockdown rules was never far from the surface this week and the solution took everyone by surprise when it was announced yesterday afternoon.

"To minimise movement and protect our communities from the evolving Covid situation in Sydney, stay-at-home orders will be introduced for all of regional NSW from 5pm tonight," deputy premier John Barilaro tweeted.

It was the culmination of a week of concern over Covid's movement into regional towns that saw 24 new cases discovered in Dubbo between Friday and Saturday.

"People are knowingly doing the wrong thing but Delta does not leave any room for error," Berejiklian told Friday's press conference as she flagged a growing problem in western NSW.

The porous greater Sydney boundaries caused havoc in places like the Hunter region too - where an outbreak started after a university student from Sydney caught a train to Newcastle to attend a beach party.

On Thursday 24 new cases were announced and lockdown was extended.

Health protection director at Hunter New England Health, David Durrheim, joked that he "should have gone down and blown up the Hawkesbury River Bridge and I am actually regretting we didn't do it at the time".

But while an area like the Hunter - with access to several hospitals including the huge John Hunter Hospital - has access to intensive medical care there is great concern for communities in western NSW.

Eight towns, including Walgett, are in a snap lockdown after a local man - who had also travelled through Bathurst and Dubbo - tested positive.

Walgett's remote location on the Barwon River, limited healthcare and large Indigenous population make it a worrying location for a Covid outbreak.

Is this the "nightmare scenario" health experts have warned of?

The member for Barwon, Roy Butler, said the region could not take any chances because its healthcare system could not cope with large numbers of very ill Covid patients.

"The news I have feared the most is confirmation of a Covid infection in a Barwon River town," he said. "I'm incredibly concerned."

Vaccines remain the focus

All of this Covid spread raises yet again the issue of vaccines and the "race" to get jabs in arms.

And while admissions to hospital ICU remain dominated by those who have not been vaccinated, this week saw the deaths of two men in their 90s who had received both doses of a vaccine.

Yet expanding vaccine delivery remained the main game in all states. And there was some good news.

The Moderna vaccine was approved for use this week, joining Pfizer as the second mRNA vaccine available to Australians. The hitch is availability - with first doses not arriving for another month.

Tasmania has begun a vaccination blitz with a goal to build a "Delta shield", according to Premier Peter Gutwein.

In Sydney, year 12 HSC students from hotspot areas were offered the jab as planned but the response was mixed with around 50 percent of eligible students taking up the offer, so far at least.

It's a policy that continues to leave some in the regions baffled as Covid heads their way, yet some of their allocated Pfizer doses have been redirected to the Sydney school cohort.

When will younger people get the jab?

But there's no question vaccinating younger people is on a lot of people's minds. Just 7.5 percent of those aged 16-19 have had a vaccination but in locked down cities more are embracing AstraZeneca.

In South Australia the vaccine vibe was different again for young people with approval for anyone over 16 to book in for a jab.

Some argue this demographic is now more needy than older folk - where vax rates are as high as 80 percent and they've had plenty of time to book in. The Delta variant appears to be making younger people more vulnerable to the disease and worryingly, they are shedding high levels of the virus making them potential super spreaders.

Berejiklian announced on Friday that 16-39 year olds living in Sydney's hotspot suburbs would be offered one of 100,000 additional vaccines from Monday.

Meanwhile, underscoring the risk to children, a school in Sydney's Gladesville announced on Thursday that 18 people have tested positive including seven students.

And just as the Indooroopilly school cluster in Brisbane showed, the Gladesville school outbreak demonstrates clearly that children in an education setting are a real spread risk.

These fears were behind an announcement this week to cancel NSW HSC exams for performance subjects, meaning those studying dance and drama, music and also foreign languages - that require an in-person conversation exam - have been cancelled this year.

And the impact of Covid on younger patients was highlighted again this week with the death of a man in his 30s and the death of a woman in her 40s.

ICU admissions continue to feature a significant proportion of people under 40.

Vaccination ethics

But not everyone is pleased at the focus on vaccination and a brewing debate over the ethics of mandatory vaccination is getting louder.

Pressure is building at vaccination clinics, where violence broke out on at least one occasion this week,

At another vaccination clinic in Queensland an "administrative error" meant that six "ultra-low doses" of Pfizer vaccine were injected.

Queensland's Chief Health Officer explained that: "An initial review indicated one vial was used twice, meaning the doses drawn on the second use were over-diluted."

She was quick to play down any risk: "The error occurred within the first hour and a half of the clinic opening and immediate action was taken.

"Those affected will be offered a new appointment to receive a repeat dose to ensure they are fully vaccinated against Covid-19.

"There is no clinical risk associated with receiving a third dose of Pfizer."

Fatigue and frustration

But there's no doubt these little "administrative errors" are feeding the fears of a segment of the community that is also growing tired of Covid restrictions.

Queensland MP George Christiansen spoke directly to that demographic this week, arguing in a speech that lockdowns and masks "do not work".

Prime Minister Scott Morrison weighed in, calling Christiansen's comments "crazy, rubbish conspiracies" and even Facebook took action and removed a video of the speech.

Yet conspiracies aside, there's an ever-growing weariness with just how to manage Covid in an under-vaccinated population.

For those who remain locked down the frustrations of confined quarters are leading to mental health and anxiety problems.

The relentless, bleak daily news of expanding case numbers creeping closer and closer and the toll of cancelled plans and bypassed opportunities start to stack up. There is a temptation to just forget it all. A bit of reality TV or an afternoon scrolling TikTok may not be so bad after all.

Or perhaps Sabra Lane, the presenter of the ABC's radio current affairs show AM, has the answer with a newsletter of positive news designed to get our mind off things.

"Yes, sometimes even a self-confessed "news junkie" like me can't take any more," Lane says of the motivation behind her Brightside newsletter. "I turn everything off, mute the phone and go bushwalking to get away from it, at least for an hour or two - sometimes more."

But with the 5km rule kicking in tomorrow, from now on that bushwalk had better be pretty close to home.

- ABC