Covid Australia live news update: NSW considers tougher lockdown as Victoria cases rise

NSW outbreak exceeds 1,000 coronavirus cases while there are now more than 165 exposure sites in Victoria

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11.46pm BST

This is an interesting breakdown of NSW exposure sites, collated before the latest exposure sites were added overnight. Keep in mind these are not necessarily transmission sites.

I've been through every single exposure site listed by NSW Health in the last two weeks. Here's the current tally #COVID19nsw pic.twitter.com/5xs9F066MK

11.42pm BST

Here is some more from that press conference held by Australian Medical Association president Dr Omar Khorshid I mentioned in the previous post. He’s called for a tougher NSW lockdown, and that would mean closing retail that is non-essential. Khorshid said:

That should not be up to common sense, not up to people doing the right thing, but an edict from government to close non-essential retail. It means closing non-essential businesses, as was done during the lockdown in Victoria. For those businesses that are essential, they must have a CovidSafe plan, which may involve completely changing the way they do things to in order to minimise the chance of transmission at work.

These measures are needed. They are not going to have a negative economic impact on Sydney, because if they’re not done, the economic impact on Sydney will be extraordinary. So it is time to take this seriously. It is time to not be hesitant, to not be worried about how this might be perceived by the community, to not be worried about the economic impact, but to take decisive action to address this crisis in Sydney and to give Sydney the best chance of getting out of this within weeks rather than months, or waiting, in fact, to the end of the year.

It is absolutely ridiculous that we still have upmarket stores being open. In fact, any stores where they’re not selling essential goods.

The message has to be crystal clear to the New South Wales community, and in particular to the Sydney community, and of course Western Sydney, that you’ve got to stay home. Simple as that; stay home. That doesn’t mean go to the shops, even if you’re not browsing, even if you want to go and just get that $10,000 handbag. It’s not urgent. You can do it online. It’s not something that has to be done now. Those shops must be closed immediately.

Our hospitals are actually full all the time. And what we can’t do at the moment is be confident that our hospitals are ready to look after the health of Australians into next year when we might be living with Covid, when we might be getting the flu back into our community.

Our hospitals being full all the time with ambulances ramped outside just don’t have any extra capacity.

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from World news | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3kt0uje