WA Premier Mark McGowan has stoked the flames of an ongoing feud with the NSW Government by saying Australia “could rest a lot easier” if COVID-19 was eliminated in Sydney.
Key points:
There were three new locally acquired coronavirus cases recorded in NSW yesterday
Mount Druitt Hospital in Western Sydney was closed for cleaning after a case presented there
Premier Gladys Berejiklian said she was pleased inbound overseas travellers would halve
Health authorities in NSW confirmed three new locally acquired COVID-19 cases in the 24 hours to 8.00pm yesterday.
Mr McGowan this afternoon said NSW should be aiming to eliminate “the virus from Sydney”.
“The idea that you tick along with the virus, and somehow that is a better model, is wrong,” he said.
“I just urge the New South Wales Government and people in New South Wales to look outside of New South Wales [to] what other states and territories are doing in order to crush and kill the virus.”
Previously, Mr McGowan urged NSW to stop “playing whack-a-mole” in the areas where the virus surfaced.
All yesterday’s new locally acquired cases in NSW were traced to the Berala cluster, but authorities are probing the source of a COVID-19 infection in a Western Sydney man who tested positive to the virus after the 8.00pm reporting deadline.
Urgent genome sequencing is underway as authorities try to determine the specific strain of COVID-19 the man has contracted.
The man, aged in his 40s, went to Mount Druitt Hospital’s emergency department (ED) on Saturday with coronavirus symptoms, and his test result came back positive late last night. It will be included in tomorrow’s numbers.
A household contact of the man, also in their 40s, has tested positive too.
The source of the man’s infection remains under investigation, Dr Chant said.
“We are doing all we can to do rapid genome testing to understand where this virus sits in terms of its lineage and whether that gives us some clues of transmission,” she said.
“We’re now focused on determining the exact time of this gentleman’s illness.”
Mount Druitt Hospital’s ED has reopened, and Premier Gladys Berejiklian said it was safe to visit the facility.
“As a precaution, all that deep-cleaning, all that activity was undertaken to make sure that the disease hasn’t spread since that case was identified,” Ms Berejiklian said .
But Dr Chant said she did not want the case shutting down the ED to act as a deterrent for people who suspect they have the virus.
“Emergency departments are there for the more serious end of the spectrum, but if they are the closest place for you to go, then go,” she said.
“But on our website, there is a large number of COVID testing sites and we do encourage you to use them … your general practitioner will help you navigate, so give your GP a call and they’ll help you as well.”
There were 18,570 tests were reported to 8:00pm yesterday, compared with 23,763 completed on Saturday.
Dr Chant said it was “essential” that NSW’s daily testing totals consistently exceeded 25,000.
“I would like to see more approaching 30,000 test as we push to get no community transmission,” she said.
Ms Berejiklian admitted she was relieved NSW would halve its intake of returned overseas travellers for the next month.
The state had been shouldering significantly more people than other jurisdictions in its hotel-quarantine program.
“[It will] give us time to understand the new strains of the virus that are mutating around the world, that exist in many different countries now,” she said.
Up until now, NSW had been welcoming 3,000 returning overseas travellers through Sydney Airport each week, with many travelling on to a different home state after two weeks in hotel quarantine.
But Ms Berejiklian said it was a balancing act between the risk of transmission and damaging the hospitality and aviation industry, warning that some airlines may never return to Australia.
“We have to accept this is the reality and unless you stop flights coming to Australia — which could be permanent if we’re not careful — unless you stop Australians being able to come home, back home, we do have that risk and we have to accept that,” she said.
Ms Berejiklian said she expected international travel to begin again once “certain proportions of populations are vaccinated”. ABC
