Three states will on Friday learn if their lockdowns will be lifted as Australia battles COVID outbreaks on multiple fronts and National Cabinet meets to consider cuts to international arrivals.
Queensland and Western Australia both welcomed “encouraging” testing results on Thursday, with those two states pinning their hopes on being let loose for the weekend.
However Darwin’s chances of breaking free have been dealt a blow after an infected person ignored isolation rules to visit a supermarket, leading the NT’s chief minister to foreshadow a possible extension to the lockdown.
Meanwhile NSW is bracing for its latest COVID numbers on Friday after recording 24 cases in the previous reporting period.
Of the 24 cases reported on Thursday, which took the outbreak to 195 cases, only half were in isolation for the entirety of their infectious period, again spiking the number of potential exposure sites.
As the halfway mark of lockdown approaches, Premier Gladys Berejiklian renewed her plea for people to stay home as much as possible after an alarming trend of people being out and about while infectious.
“People going about their business, shopping and interacting with others is causing the virus to continue to circulate,” she told reporters.
“If we want the lockdown to succeed, all of us to have minimise our movements, minimise our interaction with others.”
Ms Berejiklian also announced mass COVID-19 vaccination hubs would be established at Macquarie Fields in Sydney’s southwest, Wollongong and the Sydney CBD.
National Cabinet is due to meet on Friday and expected to discuss the premiers’ repeated calls for overseas arrivals to be reduced to ease pressure on hotel quarantine.
The Australian is also reporting the Prime Minister will seek a deal at National Cabinet to secure agreement from the states on vaccination thresholds to eliminate lockdowns and give domestic and international travel exemptions for vaccinated Australians.
This move was important to “sketch out the benefits of having a vaccinated population and consider the ‘magic numbers’ at which vaccine thresholds could be set,” writes the newspaper.
NT ‘lie’ could extend lockdown
The Northern Territory could remain in lockdown after an infected miner breached his isolation order and allegedly lied to authorities.
Darwin and Alice Springs were locked down after a worker at Newmont’s Granites Mine, in the Tanami Desert, was diagnosed with COVID-19 six days ago.
Authorities had hoped to lift the stay-at-home order on Friday until they found out the man in his 50s had misreported his movements.
He initially said he was only in the community for 36 hours before isolating at home while waiting to be moved to the National Centre for Resilience at Howard Springs, near Darwin.
But late on Thursday, it was revealed the man had visited a supermarket in Darwin hours after he was ordered to stay at home.
“I am extremely unhappy with this turn of events. Don’t lie to authorities. The best way through coronavirus is to be absolutely honest,” said a furious Chief Minister Michael Gunner.
“This is not where I want to be tonight. He broke the law and he lied about it.”
Authorities will now work to contact trace anyone who visited the Stuart Park Corner Store between 12:18pm and 12:35pm on Sunday.
The outbreak started on Saturday when a young Victorian man, who travelled to the mine via a Brisbane quarantine hotel, tested positive for the virus.
More than 700 workers were immediately ordered to isolate at the mine as authorities scrambled to track about 800 more who had flown to their homes around Australia after the infected miner arrived.
It’s understood 17 cases are linked to the outbreak.
‘Amazingly encouraging’ signs in WA
More than two million West Australians will learn when they will be freed as Premier Mark McGowan reveals on Friday whether the four-day lockdown in Perth and the Peel region will end as scheduled.
The restriction will be enforced until at least 12.01am on Saturday but could be extended depending on the latest case numbers.
No new cases were reported on Thursday from about 15,800 tests, a result the premier described as “amazingly encouraging”.
Temporary step-down restrictions including limits on gatherings and venue capacities will be enforced if the lockdown is lifted.
The outbreak has been traced to a 51-year-old physiotherapist who recently returned to WA from NSW, where she contracted the Delta variant.
Infections were subsequently detected in two men aged in their 20s and 30s and a 32-year-old woman who attended various venues throughout Perth’s northern suburbs.
Of 360 close contacts identified to date, 295 have so far tested negative, as have 1173 out of 2503 casual contacts.
The lockdown in Perth and Peel is the third in five months.
Qld ‘not out of the woods yet’
A decision on whether Queensland’s lockdown will be extended is expected on Friday as the state works to gain control over five unrelated COVID incidents.
Five community cases have been recorded during the lockdown period so far, and authorities have warned the state is “not out of the woods yet” with current restrictions due to lift at 6pm.
Two of the new cases were reported on Thursday after more than 28,000 tests – an “encouraging” sign the state was getting on top of the virus spreading.
The state is separately managing a cluster linked to a Portuguese club, a Qatar Airways worker believed to be infected at the airport, the case of a miner who returned from the NT and potential contacts of a Virgin crew member onboard several flights while having the virus.
While Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young is confident about each of the state’s COVID outbreaks individually, she said managing all of them simultaneously “is a lot”.
The state’s lockdown covers residents of Brisbane, Ipswich, Logan City, Moreton Bay, Redlands, Sunshine Coast, Noosa, Somerset, Lockyer Valley, the Scenic Rim, the Gold Coast, Townsville, Magnetic Island and nearby Palm Island until 6pm on Friday.
-with AAP
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