Australia news LIVE NSW and Victoria COVID-19 cases continue to grow Victorian lockdown extended

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More than 20 new exposure sites were listed by NSW Health overnight.

Among them are an electronics store, spare car parts retailer and a telecommunications provider. The exposure windows are from last week â€" before the NSW government cracked-down on non-essential retail.

Anyone who visited the following places at the relevant times is considered a casual contact of a positive coronavirus case. You must immediately get tested for COVID-19 and isolate until a negative result is received:

The JB HiFi store on Polding Street in Wetherill Park, in Sydney’s west, on Thursday, July 15 between 2.45pm and 3.10pm;

The Vodafone retailer at Wetherill Park Shopping Centre on Thursday, July 15 between 2.40pm and 3pm; and

All Parts Auto on Little Street in Smithfield on Wednesday, July 14 between 8.15am and 9.15am.

For a full list of exposure sites, visit the NSW government’s website.

Welfare advocates say the government’s disaster COVID payments scheme has created a two-class system, leaving those who receive social security payments behind.

The Australian Council of Social Service chief executive Cassandra Goldie says the program needs to be extended to people who have lost casual or part time work and use social security payments to subsidise their wages.

Australian Council of Social Services CEO Dr Cassandra Goldie. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

The emergency payments offer $600 a week to people who have lost at least 20 hours or $325 a week. However anyone who receives JobSeeker, Austudy or YouthAllowance is not eligible for the higher disaster payment.

“You can earn up to $600 a week and still earn a few dollars in social security,” Dr Goldie told the ABC’s RN Breakfast.

“It just highlights the ... two classes that have been introduced with this mess of a system, frankly. We need to make sure that everyone has enough income support if they’re hit by loss of jobs to keep their heads above water.”

Contract tracers need to track down each and every case of the Delta strain of COVID-19 because the transmission rate is so high, says a leading epidemiologist.

Deakin University chair of epidemiology Catherine Bennett says the combination of the higher incidence of transient exposure, plus the small incubation period, has in some cases made combating this strain more challenging.

Epidemiologist Catherine Bennett.Credit:Jason South

“Even when you discover an outbreak so quickly, which we did in both states, it’s still that chance of one case being missed, that’s the real concern because it will take off quickly.” she told RN.

“It doesn’t mean all cases do that, it just means that enough do that to mean that every time you find that next chain of transmission it’s already ... on its way.

“As you’ve seen, you know 30 hours between someone being exposed and that person being infectious ... it does make it a challenge.”

Dr Bennet said the “transient exposure” is occurring in the population with greater ease because people need a smaller dose of the infection to catch the coronavirus and the incubation period is shorter.

“We know this particular variant, it’s just easy to establish infection, so you need a smaller dose [of the infection],” she said.

“What we saw before was on average they would say 10 to 20 per cent of people would take the virus on, and then the majority wouldn’t pass it on, or [they would pass it on to] just one other person.

“But this higher infectious load means ... more people who have been exposed become infected.”

Canadian surgeon and researcher Nancy Baxter, who is the head of Melbourne University’s School of Population and Global Health, was speaking on the Today show earlier this morning.

Here’s what she had to say when she was asked how long Sydney’s lockdown will drag on for:

“Sadly, I don’t think they’re going to get to the really numbers that they need. It’s like a bushfire, right? If you leave some embers, they’re going to start [turning] into flames. That’s what happens if you don’t kind of really drive the numbers down before you open up.”

Empty streets in Sydney’s west yesterday. Credit:Nick Moir

Professor Baxter said Sydney was on track to extend its lockdown by a couple of weeks given the current number of infections.

“Overall, the numbers don’t need to be zero ... but it is that number of people who were out in the community when they’re infectious, that’s the number that needs to get to zero,” she said.

“They [NSW] are pretty far from that. So how long is a lockdown going to last? I don’t know. But I would say we’re looking more like a month than a week.”

Victorian health authorities have added more than 10 new exposure sites overnight, including several inner-city cafes and gyms.

But in good news, the majority of the additions have been labelled tier 2 venues and not tier 1.

The tier-1 sites include Upton Girl cafe in Windsor and Goodlife Health Club in Prahran on July 14 and 3 Point Training in Port Melbourne on July 15 (all in Melbourne’s inner-south). Yesterday, the number of exposure sites in Victoria topped 300 for the first time since the state’s last lockdown.

Other additions (all tier 2) include:

Cafe Marion in Fitzroy on July 16 from 12.50pm to 1.30pm;

Ringwood Mazda, Ringwood, on July 14 from 4.20pm to 5.05pm;

Upton Girl cafe, Windsor, on July 15 between 8.30am and 8.45am;

Cafe Banff in St Kilda on July 15 from 1.45pm to 3.00pm;

Daniel’s Donuts in the Melbourne CBD on July 15 from 3.00pm to 3.30pm;

The Queen Victoria Market Visitors Hub in the Melbourne CBD on July 15 from 12.15pm to 1pm; and

Tropicana Juice Bar, also in the Melbourne CBD, on July 15 from 12.45pm to 1.15pm.

The mother of two Sydney removalists who tested positive to COVID-19 was found dead in the family home on Monday morning.

The body of the woman, aged in her 50s, was found by emergency services at the home in Green Valley in Sydney’s west and she was later confirmed as a COVID-19 case.

The mother of two Sydney removalists Ramsin and Roni Shawka (pictured) who tested positive to COVID-19 was found dead in the family home on Monday morning.Credit:Nine News

Hers is the fifth death in NSW linked to the latest outbreak of COVID-19, driven by the highly contagious Delta variant.

Read more here.

Two people in Victoria’s latest outbreak have unwittingly become “outstanding” super-spreaders after picking up coronavirus brought into the state by rogue NSW removalists.

There are now more than 15,000 primary close contacts, those considered as having the highest risk of developing COVID-19, linked to the state’s outbreak.

Crowds entering the Wallabies v France match at Melbourne’s AAMI Park last week.

Read the full story here.

The Sydney and Victorian lockdowns aimed at stopping the spread of the Delta strain of coronavirus could cost the country $10 billion, with new private-sector forecasts that the outbreak will derail the national economic recovery.

KPMG estimates up to 1.5 percentage points will be stripped from growth in the September quarter based on shutdowns of 40 days across Greater Sydney and 10 days in Victoria, with the cost being borne largely by private businesses and privately employed workers.

The extended Sydney and Melbourne lockdowns are tipped to hurt the national economy. Credit:Rhett Wyman

Read the full story here.

Sydney’s public transport patronage fell to levels not seen since the 1800s and traffic was the lightest it had been in four decades as the city all but stopped on Monday after new coronavirus restrictions came into effect to suppress the Delta outbreak.

The number of people on public transport was about eight per cent of pre-COVID levels, according to new NSW government figures, a sign that the latest restrictions had likely had an immediate impact on mobility across the city. Road traffic also decreased by more than 45 per cent.

An empty street in Parramatta on Monday.Credit:Nick Moir

New restrictions announced over the weekend included a ban on all non-urgent construction work, the closure of non-essential retail, a travel ban stopping residents from leaving Fairfield, Liverpool and Canterbury-Bankstown unless they were essential workers and a cut in public transport services by up to 50 per cent.

Read the full story here.

Good morning and thanks for you company. It’s Tuesday, July 20.

I’m Broede Carmody and I’ll bring you some of the morning’s biggest stories as the day unfolds.

Here’s everything you need to know in the meantime:

It’s been revealed that Sydney’s latest coronavirus death (a woman in her 50s) is the mother of two removalists who tested positive to COVID-19. NSW recorded 98 new cases yesterday. Twenty of those were infectious in the community. Meanwhile, seven NSW coronavirus patients are ventilated in ICU.

Victorian authorities are expected to announce today when the state might come out of lockdown. Sixteen cases were recorded yesterday. There are more than 15,000 primary close contacts and 300 exposure sites across the state.

There are three new cases in South Australia. They are an 81-year-old man, his daughter and a close contact. Sixteen people are isolating. New restrictions include masks in high-risk settings, gym closures and restaurants restricted to outdoor seated dining only.

The Australian government has named China as the orchestrator of “malicious cyber attacks” against the Microsoft Exchange program. The hack, undertaken earlier this year, compromised tens of thousands of computers around the world. The naming-and-shaming (in conjunction with allies such as the United States) represents the latest challenge to relations between Australia and China.

Two new mass vaccination centres are opening in Ipswich and the Gold Coast in Queensland. More than 200,000 Queenslanders are on a waiting list for the Pfizer vaccine.

And in overseas news, Ash Barty has touched down in Tokyo ahead of the Olympic Games. It comes as an American gymnast tests positive to COVID-19.

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