NSW ‘playing the Covid odds’
Australia’s leading medical group says the New South Wales state government has put the rest of the country at risk with its decision not to go ‘‘hard and early’’ in its response to the Covid-19 outbreak on Sydney’s northern beaches, which is suspected to have also caused new cases in neighbouring Victoria.
Victoria yesterday recorded 10 new local cases, bringing the number of active cases in the state to 29. Trace testing has linked the new Melbourne cluster to the New South Wales outbreak.
Australian Medical Association vice-president Chris Moy said the New South Wales government was ‘‘playing the odds’’ by relying heavily on its contact tracing system instead of imposing a quick lockdown to stop the spread of the virus across Sydney.
‘‘They have put themselves and put the rest of the country at risk.’’
Victoria only recently overcame a second wave, which forced overnight curfews and lockdowns of Melbourne and other areas, and which killed more than 800 people out of Australia’s toll of 909. The state had gone more than two months without a new case until the new outbreaks over the past week.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has resisted pressure to force Sydney into lockdown, mandate masks and ban crowds at some sports events despite the number of cases in NSW growing from none to 170 in two weeks.
University of Melbourne
epidemiologist Tony Blakely said the NSW government should have locked down the northern beaches outbreak 48 to 72 hours earlier than it did.
Berejiklian yesterday made masks mandatory in shopping centres, on public transport and in entertainment venues, and fines will come into effect tomorrow.
In December, many states opened their borders freely to other states, and the hope was to have Australia completely open by Christmas, except for international travellers. But the Sydney northern beaches outbreak has seen new
restrictions out in place.
At midnight on Friday, Victoria closed its border to NSW, prompting traffic bottlenecks as people raced to beat the closure.
The total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in the United States has topped 20 million, the most of any country, according to Johns Hopkins University.
That’s 24 per cent of the planet’s official cases, a sobering figure considering the US is home to less than 5 per cent of the world’s population.
India had the second-largest number of confirmed cases with 10.3 million, Johns Hopkins said.
Brazil has reported 7.7 million, Russia 3.2 million, and France 2.7 million.
Deaths also are up in the US, totalling 346,687, or 19 per cent of the world’s cumulative coronavirus death toll, as of yesterday.
California yesterday saw perhaps its darkest day yet. Officials reported 535 coronavirus deaths, a one-day record that trails only those set by New York in mid-April.
California has now reported more than 25,000 deaths, the only state other than New York and Texas to pass that milestone. Experts fear that things will only get worse in the weeks to come.
The situation remains particularly dire in Los Angeles County, where morgues are overflowing, funeral homes are turning away families, and hospitals are reaching their breaking points.
Wary of another wave of infections, China is urging tens of millions of migrant workers to stay put during next month’s Lunar New Year holiday, usually the world’s largest annual human migration.
China yesterday reported a total of 22 cases, including 14 brought in from outside the country.
■ British hospitals face a perilous situation this month, medical workers warn amid surging coronavirus infections blamed on a new virus variant.
Authorities are being pressed to reactivate field hospitals previously mothballed, to handle the crush of new patients.
Concerns are mounting about the ability of the already stretched National Health Service to cope with the anticipated increase in people seeking treatment for Covid-19 infections over the coming weeks, which could be further fuelled by holiday gatherings.
The UK has recorded its four highest daily new infection numbers over the past four days – all above 50,000, and around double the daily number of a few weeks ago.
The Royal College of Nursing’s England director, Mike Adams, said the UK was in the ‘‘eye of the storm’’, while Adrian Boyle, vice-president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said: ‘‘We are very much at battle stations.’’