New South Wales has reached a new record high number of daily Covid cases of 291, with cases now concentrated in the Canterbury-Bankstown area among specific multicultural communities.
The age profile of people becoming ill with Covid-19 has also dropped with 70% of new cases under 40, and 58% under the age of 30. This is partly due to the younger demographic in south-west and western Sydney and higher vaccination rates in older people.
Despite health authorities concentrating their efforts in those areas of concern and working closely with community leaders, the numbers are continuing to increase.
The latest outbreak has not yet peaked with the premier, Gladys Berejiklian, warning people to be prepared for higher case numbers over the next few days.
That’s due to the high proportion that were infectious in the community: 96 new cases were in the community for all or some of their infectious period and 105 cases were still under investigation.
Berejiklian again focused on vaccination rates being the key out of lockdown as the state struggles to get case numbers under control in the diverse communities of the eight hotspot local government areas in western and south-west Sydney.
“It is tough,” the NSW chief health officer, Kerry Chant, said. “We have a mix of things. We have people who go out into workplaces and go home.”
Chant cited the example of 12 staff members at a KFC outlet in Punchbowl who tested positive to Covid.
Anyone who attended the venue at any time in the seven days from Tuesday 27 July is a close contact and must isolate for two weeks.
Chant said workplaces became transmission sites “because we don’t all maintain social distancing, we don’t wear our masks correctly, we don’t get tested promptly”.
The 12 workers then took the virus home to their families, she said.
When journalists queried why fast food outlets remained open, especially in hotspot LGAs, Chant said: “This is about a balance of access to food and other things that people need.”
The NSW government has given up on its plan to get year 12s back to school on 16 August, announcing that trials exams for the HSC will take place online for students who are in lockdown areas, which now also includes the Hunter region.
Students in other regions of NSW are still attending school and will do their trials under normal exam conditions, raising possible issues about fairness.
The government is working on “a comprehensive and flexible model that will allow schools to provide HSC students essential lessons and check-ins with teachers sensibly and safely”, the health and education ministers said in a joint statement.
But HSC students living or learning in the eight LGAs of concern (Blacktown, Campbelltown, Canterbury-Bankstown, Cumberland, Fairfield, Georges River, Liverpool and Parramatta) will not return to school until the planned mass vaccination takes place and has time to work – at least two weeks on from their first shot.
Berejiklian said all affected students would receive an email on how to book their Pfizer vaccine, which will be administered from 9 August at Qudos Arena at Olympic Park.
Parents will be able to ring a hotline to ask questions about the Pfizer vaccine.
But Berejiklian seemed to balk at the idea that vaccination status would be a requirement to enter exam rooms for the HSC in hotspots, saying that “sitting the HSC safely is a pretty good incentive”.
The NSW government denied that the weight of cases – there are now 50 people in intensive care with Covid-19 – was overwhelming the health system.
The health minister, Brad Hazzard, has admitted the health system is “under stress”, but Chant said it was a large and integrated system and the decision to cancel elective surgery was freeing up capacity.
The Health Services Union ambulance division has said paramedics waited for seven hours in an ambulance with a Covid-positive patient outside Westmead hospital on Thursday because queues formed to admit Covid patients.
There are also reports that the contact tracing system is under strain, with anecdotal evidence of people being alerted to exposures as long ago as 13 days.
This can sometimes be due to the positive person remembering additional details of their movements or not telling contact tracers.
“Our contact tressing teams have been boosted by several hundred people, including ADF support, so the resources are there,” Berejiklian said.
“That is why we ask people to be patient. If we need further resources we will make sure it happens, but there is no doubt that the more cases you have, the more the challenge.”
