Amid the politicking, blaming and panicked rhetoric of NSW’s daily Covid update, there was a surprising number of insights into why the state is struggling to bring this outbreak under control, and what’s coming.
Here’s what we learned:
1. Despite tighter restrictions to limit movement to only those in essential work, the highly contagious Delta virus is still spreading through supermarkets and essential workers. Many live in the hotspots.
The chief health officer, Dr Kerry Chant, said she’s “very concerned” that despite the “intensive lockdown” over six days, there’s not been a decline in case numbers.
“In looking at how the transmission is occurring, we have seen transmission continue in households, amongst household groups … but also some spread from points where people have to actually go and get food, supermarkets and other settings,” she said.
“The other elements of the transmission is occurring in workplaces. And these workplaces are not the hairdressers or the discretionary premises.
“They are premises that actually put food on the table for people in Sydney. They are people that keep [our] supermarkets stocked, working in food processing and other settings.”
This is borne out by the type of exposure sites now being listed.
The implications of this are profound. Locking down harder will be difficult and demands new strategies. It would mean moving to deliveries or click and collect for food, introducing strict protocols in warehouses and restricting truck movements. It means working with employers of essential workers to vaccinate key workers.
2. Many essential workers are young and unvaccinated
“The group of workers that keep the society going is this group of workers in the 20 to 49-year-old age group in south-western Sydney,” Chant said.
As Chant pointed out, under-40s are not routinely eligible for Pfizer. The advice on AstraZeneca is that they can have it after a discussion with their GP on the risk.
Chant and the NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, are now begging for more Pfizer.
Chant said she’s calling for a mass vaccination of those workers to stem the transmission risk and as a frontline tool in controlling the current outbreak.
“We know that vaccines … reduce the risk, even if you are vaccinated with one dose, it reduces your risk of onward transmission,” she said.
Later, one official said the risk of onward transmission after one dose was reduced by around 50%.
We also learned there are much lower rates of vaccination in south-west Sydney, partly because of the younger age profile and also because of vaccine hesitancy.
In multicultural south-west Sydney, the government is struggling against some age-old problems: multiple languages and a distrust of government among some migrants.
3. There is a huge shortage of Pfizer and confusion about AstraZeneca.
There is clearly not enough Pfizer to vaccinate younger essential workers, should that step be endorsed.
Yet the state is “awash in AstraZeneca” according to the health minister, Brad Hazzard. The problem is the messaging around the use of that vaccine, and appointments are not being filled.
Berejiklian lamented the lack of clear message from our nation’s leaders. She urged everyone to take AstraZeneca, as she and her family has done.
But there is confusion emanating from NSW as well. Its hubs cannot administer AstraZeneca to under-40s. Younger people need to have a conversation with their GPs to get it, though pharmacies will soon be able to give AstraZeneca on the same basis.
4. ‘Surveillance testing’ – requiring essential workers who are leaving hotspot LGAs for work to have a test every three days – is at its limit.
Health and aged care workers and other essential workers from Fairfield local government area have to get tested every three days to go to work. This has been extended to health and aged care workers in the Canterbury-Bankstown LGA.
Others in western and south-west Sydney – over a million people - can’t leave without a test once a week. The list was expanded on Friday.
But that means people getting tested because they might have Covid-19 are now waiting up to 72 hours for test results.
“We have to acknowledge that our testing resources are finite. At the moment we have about 82,000, or we are getting up above 80,000 every day,” Chant said.
“We are starting to max out at that and what we have to weigh that against is the ability for people with symptoms to get diagnosed and to get fast turnarounds.”
5. If the virus takes hold in Sydney and NSW, it will seep into other states
The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, might want a ring of steel around Sydney, but the interconnectedness of Sydney to the rest of Australia will make it challenging.
“No matter how hard you have a state border lockdown, the virus still seeps through,” Berejiklian said.
“No border is perfect. There are always exceptions. And that’s the point we want to make, and that’s the point we’ve made in New South Wales since the start of the pandemic. No matter how hard you make your border closure, it does not prevent, with the exception of WA which is very segregated from the rest of the nation, it is very difficult to contain the virus.”
There are already concerns about the northern border region of Byron Bay where fragments of the virus have been found in sewage.
One option is to introduce antigen testing for transport workers at the border. But that will involve delays and false positives.
6. Despite the premier’s spin about ‘living as freely possible during July, August, September and October’, Sydney is heading into a prolonged lockdown.
Berejiklian conceded the lockdown won’t end on 30 July.
She refused to answer questions about whether she still intended to open up construction in a week.
A huge number of tradespeople live in south-west Sydney, so this would increase movement, exactly what the authorities don’t want. No matter how safe worksites are, those workers will stop for coffee, shopping and petrol in other areas.
So how long will it be?
Berejiklian seemed to indicate that the end of lockdown could be contingent on much higher rates of vaccination.
“I want the community to be aware and ready for whatever decisions we need to take next week. But I also want to stress again that our citizens should look forward to how we can live as freely and as safely as possible in August, September and October,” she said. “By the end of October those huge supplies [of vaccine] will be here in NSW but we have a gap in the next four to six weeks.”
