COVID-19 case numbers continue to climb across Sydney, with 136 cases recorded overnight — a record high for 2021. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian described the situation as a “national emergency” as she called for the federal vaccine rollout to focus on Sydney.
It’s not clear what labelling the outbreak a “national emergency” will do. The National Emergency Declaration (Consequential Amendments) Act was legislated only last year after the bushfire royal commission and can be declared by state and territory administrators if “extraordinary measures are required to prevent or minimise the effect, or likely effect, of that emergency on the territory”.
It could signal harsher restrictions for the state, with more residents in Sydney’s west not allowed to leave their local government area unless they’re on a list of authorised workers.
Experts have criticised Berejiklian for being too slow to go into lockdown and too lax with restrictions. With more than half the country’s population in lockdown because of Sydney’s outbreak, what more could be done to stamp out case numbers? And is there any evidence to back it up?
Masks outdoors
Victoria has mandated that everyone must wear a face mask at all times except when at homes or exercising, provided the exercise is strenuous enough for the person to be out of breath or puffing. But joggers must have a mask on them at all times.
NSW also mandates that everyone must have a face mask on them at all times, but they only have to be worn outdoors when near others.
A new study released yesterday by the Burnet Institute showed the mask mandate in Victoria was key to reducing transmission; mask usage rose from about 43% to 97% in the four days after the mandate was enforced.
One study found face masks indoors are 79% effective in preventing transmission if everyone is wearing one. Another model estimates if 80-90% of the population wore masks when in contact with others, community transmission would be eliminated. Any kind of mask, from a repurposed cotton sock to a surgical mask, is effective. Double-masking with a surgical mask under a cloth mask can double efficacy.
But there’s not a lot of data about how effective masks are outdoors. One study found less than 10% of all COVID cases were transmitted outdoors — though this hasn’t been tested under the Delta variant, University of Melbourne epidemiologist Tony Blakely tells Crikey.
“Last year we thought outdoors there was enough natural ventilation, but with Delta it’s just a completely different game,” he said. “Theoretically, it will make a difference. Outside transmission probably wasn’t that consequential last year, but this year it is.”
Smaller bubbles and curfews
Sydney residents can travel only 10 kilometres from their home to shop for essentials and exercise. During Victoria’s 112-day lockdown last year, travel was limited to five kilometres and in South Australia it’s just 2.5km.
But finding proof these restrictions have a major effect on limiting transmission is tough, Blakley says.
“In each of the tiered stages of lockdown, we don’t always know exactly what the contribution is of each component,” he said.
While radiuses limit people from mixing and curfews serve as a reminder of the state of emergency, their efficacy isn’t known. Curfews may also have the opposite effect, causing people to rush to essential stores at the same time before curfew or prompt people to have indoor gatherings instead of going for a late-night walk.
Limit essential workers
Professor of biostatistics at the University of South Australia Adrian Esterman tells Crikey the government’s broad definition of essential workers was a concern. Workers in retail, education, transport, manufacturing, agriculture and services to maintain and upkeep public and recreational spaces are all deemed essential in NSW.
“There’s still a huge list of people considered to be essential workers,” he said. “It’s enormous and I would ask whether they really are all essential.”
Whatever the rules, they must be adhered to
Whatever the rule, it all comes down to reducing mobility and limiting the number of people in contact with one another. But Sydney residents have not been sticking to the rules: last week, modelling by the University of Sydney estimated just 40% of residents were staying home. If 80% of people complied with public health orders, lockdown would be over in a month, researchers said. But if that number dropped to 70% it would take two months.
The next few days are crucial as the impact of restrictions implemented last week will be known. Esterman is critical of the government’s response, saying NSW should have gone into lockdown a week before it did and is unlikely to curb the outbreak until September. But he says NSW is likely to have hit its peak COIVD-19 cases — as long as people follow the rules.
Professor of biostatistics at the University of South Australia Adrian Esterman tells Crikey the government’s broad definition of essential workers was a concern.
The PM was allowed to travel from Sydney to the ACT as he was deemed to be an essential worker. Wrong! On both counts!
Exactly. The PM is neither a worker nor essential.
As are all the Coalition MP’s state and federally.
It’s simple the how and why we ended up with Morrison.
Because the QAnon supporter and bilious glutton Clive Palmer bought power.
He was allowed to have all his token candidates run, despite leaving parts of their nomination forms incomplete, the dual citizen section in particular. This is an unnecessary failure of our AEC and their deviant nomination process.
Clive Palmer preferred to spend millions electing the two minor parties who would favour his business interests and not the nation or planet’s interests; rather than pay his Townsville workers their legal entitlements. He got away with that too, the bill picked up by taxpayers again.
Our absurd voting system enabled his treasonous bought and paid for candidates to hand their preferences over to the LNP and the Coalition. The preferential system having been introduced by the self titled ratbags decades agao.
The election of Palmer’s stooges and the other micro party senators is a direct result of preferential voting which as Antony Greens says ‘was first introduced in Australia to allow conservative candidates to contest seats against each other without the danger of the non-Labor vote being split and delivering victory to Labor.’
Politics in Australia was corrupted as far back as 1918 when the conservatives introduced it in response to the rise of the small farmers Country Party.
The Country Party split the anti-Labor vote in conservative country areas, allowing Labor candidates to win seats.
The conservative government of shapeshifter Billy Hughes introduced preferential voting as a means of allowing competition between the two conservative parties without putting seats at risk. It was first used at the Corangamite by-election on 14 December 1918.
2019 The Guardian:
The AEC did not take punitive action in the 87 cases, but said it was able to more effectively and quickly resolve the breaches by issuing direct warnings.
It also did not take action on several complaints where voters were misled or deceived in an attempt to influence their vote. The AEC usually was unable to act because the cases did not fall foul of electoral law, no matter how egregious they appeared. The AEC has the power to take individuals to court to seek an injunction for breaches of electoral laws. It has only done so once before.
For the first time this election, the AEC was also able to seek civil penalties for breaches of the electoral law.
The watchdog said it was “fully prepared, willing and able” to use the full powers available to it. But a spokesman said it was usually much faster and more effective to provide warnings to the offending party.
We have a farcical paper tiger in the AEC, and it’s not just their reluctance to do anything about election corruption
The AEC also lacks resources and the remit to check candidates’ eligibility, despite the new requirements designed to prevent another dual citizenship scandal. Guardian Australia revealed that United Australia party candidates had failed to properly complete section 44 disclosures on dual citizenship, but the AEC was unable to take action because it had no power to do so.
“The whole thing’s a mess,” Maley said.
Prof Graeme Orr, a political law expert at the University of Queensland, said election campaigns now risked being “awash with material that is not authorised or misleads electors in how to cast vote”.
Orr believes it is critical that action be taken on the Chisholm case, where a third party imitated AEC signage to convince voters to vote Liberal.
“The AEC must protect its own integrity against material, like that in Chisholm, that imitates its style and colours,” he said. “The AEC and rival parties could have sought court injunctions to restrain any unlawful material: the AEC retains power to investigate further and refer any breaches to police.”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/22/australian-electoral-commission-finds-87-cases-of-election-ads-breaching-law
We have a farcical paper tiger in the AEC, and it’s not just their reluctance to do anything about election corruption
The AEC also lacks resources and the remit to check candidates’ eligibility, despite the new requirements designed to prevent another dual citizenship scandal. Guardian Australia revealed that United Australia party candidates had failed to properly complete section 44 disclosures on dual citizenship, but the AEC was unable to take action because it had no power to do so.
“The whole thing’s a mess,” Maley said.
Prof Graeme Orr, a political law expert at the University of Queensland, said election campaigns now risked being “awash with material that is not authorised or misleads electors in how to cast vote”.
Orr believes it is critical that action be taken on the Chisholm case, where a third party imitated AEC signage to convince voters to vote Liberal.
“The AEC must protect its own integrity against material, like that in Chisholm, that imitates its style and colours,” he said. “The AEC and rival parties could have sought court injunctions to restrain any unlawful material: the AEC retains power to investigate further and refer any breaches to police.”
TG May 22, 2019
Authoritarianism is quite the rage in Boris Brexit Britain also.
none too subtle hints have been given about the ‘independence’ of the judiciary and the message has found it’s way down the ladder of enforcement also.
The Liberal Party’s campaign director will be looking for HIS knighthood soon; they are literally as ‘thick’ as thieves .
There is an air of arrogance in Sydney which doesn’t exist in Melbourne – from claiming “gold standards”, to weak lockdowns, to “national emergencies” that should only be state emergencies. I’m hoping that Gladys’s new found humility is permanent, and when the conditions improve, she doesn’t revert back to the sloppy self serving we got before. But I’m not holding my breath, and Dan Andrews and Mark McGowan are ready to call her out if she slips back.
Gladys Berejiklian denies breaking her own mask rules as she is seen bare-faced on a coffee run with her new lawyer boyfriend – and many Sydneysiders rush to her defence
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9800869/Covid-19-Australia-Gladys-Berejiklian-denies-breaking-Sydney-lockdown-rules-seen-maskless.html
Yes much like Kerry Chant who told Sydneysiders early in the, “lockdown” that she was pleased to see so many people wearing masks at the coffee shop she was at …a point picked up by my 11yo grandson who promptly phoned me from actual lockdown, to ask if I’d seen/heard her comments (I had and was just as disgusted as he was).
Oddly or should I say, to be expected of the media at the time, and in the following days, nobody picked her up on it.
Of course this was earlier in the crisis when everyone was told to go out for “essential” reasons only.
Oh that’s right…it’s still the same, isn’t it?
As the ABC has reported, people are now travelling 70 kilometres from their homes, for “essential” Pfizer vaccination, to a GP at Thirroul.
But apparently, the great Hazzard is “pleased” that people are going out of their way to get vaccinated.
Unfortunately, others like myself, in regional areas who can’t sit or stand in queues for hours after driving for hours due to medical conditions, must wait until the end of the year, to be vaccinated with even a first Pfizer dose.
But it is great too, that now 12-15 year olds will be added to the Pfizer vaccination list, further denying others that our so-called PM had originally said would be included in the first rollout.
What a despicable lot these government officials are.
And yet apparently Glady’s has strong support within NSW.
I hope people from NSW are noticing how premier’s from other states are seeking to influence how they live their lives.
I don’t buy that McGowan, Andrews, Palaszczuk have nothing but altruistic virtue as they politic against NSW and the Federal government. The cost of this is the breakdown of our federation and a divided Australia. In fact the notion of “Australia” no longer really exists since about mid 2020.
We should have sent state teams to the Olympics to compete against each other.
Yeah, pity about those ones who don’t support the Delta Queen playing Russian roulette with their lives for personal gain and power.
Yes it is a pity for them, but she has supporters too. Well, with a six chambered gun Russian roulette is a 1 in 6 certain death. We as adults need to be less emotive and hysterical when discussing the issues facing us. Comments like “Russian roulette” are why we are where we are.
Hahaha, take your 1 in 6 and go for a run
You’re clogging up crikey with your insane babble-rants. You must be posting what, 30 or 40 comments per article?
The surging outbreak has been blamed on a lack of testing and low vaccination rates, as well as a reluctance by Widodo and other political leaders to impose restrictions due to concerns about the economic and social impacts.
An attitude with much in common with NSW Berjiklian in fact.
He’s Crikey’s reigning Motor Mouth
Piqued that your #1 spot has usurped?
As you always proved, quantity is in inverse ratio to quality.
Scott Morrison was advised last week by Australia’s chief medical officer that anyone who attends his Canberra residence should be vaccinated against Covid-19 and take daily saliva tests – advice that was not followed in relation to journalists at recent press conferences.
On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, the prime minister held press conferences outside the Lodge, where he is quarantining after returning to Canberra from Sydney.
The press conferences were attended by reporters who were required to wear masks and check in using QR codes to reduce risk – but not all were fully vaccinated and none had been required to undertake saliva testing.
The Labor senator Katy Gallagher, a former ACT chief minister, queried the safety of the arrangements at the Covid committee on Friday, including how the prime minister was able to call the press conference when other parliamentarians were in stricter two-week quarantine ahead of parliament returning on 3 August. TG
Gold standard of debauchery, Morrison and your GladdyRags
Victorian premier Daniel Andrews calling for a “ring of steel” around Sydney. Put one around Shredder Berjiklian too while you’re at it, to stop further transmission from her gold standard of criminal negligence.
Remember your Morrisin Coalition Party’s $7million wasted on their failed Covid safe app? Well wouldn’t you know it, a private company Abt Associates was paid $200,000 by taxpayers to do a report which was handed over in March. It has finally been released thanks to an FOI but with massive redactions all through it.
The report was supposed to be tabled in parliament within 15 sitting days of it being handed to government under the legislation for the Covidsafe app.
Morrison’s Coalition breached this requirement as it was handed to them in March!
What’s it like to be known as — Crikey’s reigning Motor Mouth ?
Do tell, being the previous post holder.
Victoria learnt by hard experience. Andrews was initially as reluctant as Gladys to go for a really hard lockdown but then we had 700 cases and rising. Very quickly. It concentrated the mind.
The 5 km limit, which was patrolled in areas where the police thought people were likely to break the rules, eg to parks some distance away and to meet people often in largish groups, made a difference. It was far enough to not go crazy on daily exercise but not so far as to make it meaningless.
What is a “has strong support” and how did Glady come to possess one?
It was held to be the case in a Murdoch UK publication
Smh reported yesterday that Gladys ” Still has strong support” from the electorate.
Yes the property developers are her mainstay along with the purveyors of grog
Doesn’t a “national emergency” neatly slide accountability towards others? Any why wouldn’t Melbourne’s cris have national significance?
Cos it’s a Labor Premier and not a shredder of rorting documents as is Ruby Delta Queen Berjiklian.
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/coronacast/what-if-nsw-cant-get-it-under-control/13466108
What if NSW can’t get it under control?
Read or listen, transcript on site now too. Vale NSW.
National emergency bullsh…just got off the phone from a friend in Dorrigo, and it’s no lockdown there, just usual masks and social distancing!
Not going early enough or hard enough is Gladys’s proven gold medal strategy .
The wife of the liberal party’s Campaign Director – Brian Loughnane will be giving her the death stare …..in the fullness of time and at the appropriate juncture…….. right Rupert !
Well let’s see what this gets us.
The NSW Public Accountability Committee has reconvened its inquiry into the Berejiklian’s government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic response.
And it should be noted that this committee has teeth, as it’s the same body that recently blew the lid on multiple pork barrelling scandals involving the NSW Liberal Nationals government.
Committee chair NSW Greens MLC David Shoebridge has outlined the inquiry will be probing into the chauffeur arrangements for international pilots that led to the outbreak, quarantine management, hesitation to lockdown and disparities in approaches between east and west Sydney.
Committee chair NSW Greens MLC David Shoebridge said:
”This inquiry is necessary to have accountability of government during a crisis. We still don’t know the various factors the government took into account, when Greater Sydney moved very slowly into a lockdown in mid-June.
By the time the citywide lockdown was announced, there were already COVID fragments being discovered in some dozen sewage treatment plants right across the Greater Sydney region.
It’s essential that we understand what factors other than public health advice were relied upon to decide when and how hard to go with the lockdown.
In that context, it’s important to remember the state budget was in the middle of that first seven day period.
It seems incredible that one of the most critical risks in a pandemic – in this case, the transportation of international flight crew – was handed out to a privatised firm with literally no public health oversight.
We need to understand how that happened and ensure that measures are being put in place so that kind of mistake is not repeated.
When you privatise and contract out critical public health functions in a pandemic, of course, that’s going to invite scrutiny and that’s what we are going to give it.
You can’t look at the public health response without understanding how unevenly and how unfairly pandemic and lockdown measures impact the community.
We have already seen how the same circumstances can cause significantly more disruption in southwest Sydney than they do in more affluent parts of the city, such as the east and the Northern Suburbs.
We all want people to comply with public health orders – to stay home and to stay safe – but, for that to happen, people need to have the economic security and the supports in place for them to safely do that.
At the moment, those arrangements are so patchy that they push against the public health messaging.
There are clearly competing lines of thought within the Berejiklian cabinet about how to respond to the lockdown.
There are voices in her team who are calling for the near complete removal of the lockdown and to let the pandemic explode.
There are other influencing voices who are clearly representing specific industries that have traditionally been very powerful, such as the construction sector.
We need to ensure that the decision-making is primarily guided by public health advice and public health measures that keep all of us safe.
We don’t want to just respond to one or two well-funded or well-connected industries or, worse still, to some of the anti-science conspirators who are within the Coalition government ranks.”
The Dictator Dan meme came from ferocious Peta Credlin self indulgent performance resulting from the escape of the virus from a converted quarantine hotel, ‘policed’ by the private sector, resulting in more than 100 hard lockdown days……we learned from that that you couldn’t trust the ‘private sector’…….right Peta ?
“We’ve done nothing, and we’re all out of ideas!”
“How about declaring a national emergency?”
Well the preference for the Deputy Premier/Treasurer Dominick Perrottoter – who’s busily white anting Berjiklian trying to get her job, is the same preference of the Tory clown Bozo Johnson. No surprises there as he’s the leader of the hard care right NSW Liberal Party faction; and is copying his advisors Johnson/Trump/Bolsonaro etc etc The refrain we’re hearing from the killers in the Coalition.
Boris Johnson pushed ahead with his controversial move to end indoor mask-wearing and capacity limits for gatherings and indoor venues, saying the public needed to “live with the virus”.
It’s a worrying statistic that so many Sydneysiders aren’t following guidelines.
After Victoria was treated like a pariah state earlier in the year – it’s strange to see that Gladys now wants us to help out by giving all our Phizer shots to her.
Looks like Morrison has also lost his best friend gleam for Gladys too.
Poor Glad. Got to feel sorry for NSW – it’s crap knowing everyone is saying bad things about you or your Premier.
Just wish I could drum up the enthusiasm to post a Sympathy card to Gladys but I’d rather buy some cheap chips.