NSW Covid update: September return to school ruled out and fourth term in doubt amid state’s 818 new cases

New South Wales’s plans for schools should be known by the end of the week, but with rising Covid case numbers among children the premier, Gladys Berejiklian, has ruled out schools opening in term three.

Term four is looking dubious, especially for primary-age children.

“We have provided certainty for parents in terms of September,” Berejiklian said. “Unfortunately, we have said that current conditions remain in place. If you’re still home schooling, that will continue,” she said, apparently referring to last week’s extension of the lockdown until the end of September.

“September doesn’t change what is happening for schools, but in terms of when schools are likely to go back, we will provide information when it’s available.”

Berejiklian said she was consulting with health officials, education staff and the chief psychiatrist but hoped to make an announcement by the end of the week.

NSW cases have again remained stubbornly high – there were 818 new infections in the 24 hours to 8pm Sunday, a slight decline on the weekend’s record case numbers well into the 800s.

Three people in their 80s with preexisting conditions died in hospitals in the state.

A total of 160,000 tests were reported during the data period, despite there no longer being a requirement for surveillance tests every three days for authorised workers.

Of the new cases, 121 were among children aged up to nine and 160 among children 10 to 19.

With more than 25% of new cases now among children and no vaccines yet approved for children under 12, the prospect of primary schools returning in term four is looking bleak.

The government is likely to focus its efforts on vaccinating teachers, students sitting the HSC and older students.

“Our health experts, in particular, are working with how the HSC can be done safely [and for] what cohorts of children it is safe to go back at particular times,” Berejiklian said. “So all of that detail is being worked through, and I think the community prefers advice over speculation.”

In budget estimates, the chief health officer, Dr Kerry Chant, conceded the Delta variant had proven to be “much more transmissible with children” than previous strains of the virus.

She said that while vaccines were currently approved only in children aged 16 and older, the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (Atagi) was considering whether to recommend their use for the ages 12 to 15.

Chant also said studies overseas were looking at the safety of vaccines in younger children, and some of those findings were expected by the end of this year.

“We will await the advice of Atagi but it may be we are rolling out the vaccines to younger children in 2022,” she said.

The good news is that NSW will hit its target of 6m doses a week early, and has already reached 5.9m. Large numbers of people are continuing to get vaccinated, with the state hitting new records, particularly with additional Pfizer doses available for 16to-39-year-olds in hotspot local government areas (LGAs).

The premier appeared to join the prime minister, Scott Morrison, in saying that all states including NSW would have to learn to live with Covid once the 80% double vaccination threshold was reached.

“Each state will go through a difficult time as you transition …. and normalising is a word that’s probably a bit confronting for people,” Berejiklian said.

“Just as we tend to talk about the number of people that die from flu, when we have 80% double-dose vaccination, that’s how we’ll treat it. The case numbers will be less relevant – what will be more relevant is how many people are in intensive care and how many people succumb.”

The majority of cases remain in western and south-western Sydney, which entered a more stringent lockdown today, including a 9pm-to-5am curfew and a limit on exercise of an hour a day.

The Campbelltown LGA had a quarter of the new cases, with 207.

There are still concerns about a spread to regional towns including Bateau Bay on the Central Coast, Lithgow and Bathurst, Parkes and Orange in the west.

There are also growing concerns about the situation in some outback towns such as Wilcannia, where a funeral two weeks ago has sparked an outbreak.