Summary
- Victoria recorded 270 new coronavirus cases yesterday, its third-highest daily total. The state's Chief Health Officer has warned the state's ongoing surge of coronavirus cases will result in at least 200 people requiring hospital care within the next fortnight.
- The number of cases associated with Sydney's Crossroads Hotel has grown to 30, and the cluster is now genomically linked to the Melbourne outbreak. Today, a Woolworths at Bowral and a pizza store in Belfield have been forced to close following positive cases, but Premier Gladys Berejiklian has ruled out a city-wide lockdown.
- More than 14,000 doctors and other healthcare workers have signed up to relieve overstretched Victorian hospitals battling coronavirus outbreaks that have led to severe staffing shortages.
- Queensland has upped its border operation after banning residents of 77 Sydney suburbs from entering the Sunshine State, in addition to its existing ban on Victorians. A total of 35 people were turned around yesterday.
- There have been more than 13 million cases of coronavirus recorded since the start of the pandemic and more than 575,000 people have died. Three US states have broken their single-day records for coronavirus deaths. Australia passed the 10,000-case mark yesterday.
Latest updates
Yet another venue announces virus connection in south-west Sydney
By Mary Ward
Another venue in Sydney's Macarthur region has been told by NSW Health that a patron who attended its premises tested positive for COVID-19.
Wests League Club at Leumeah, near Campbelltown, was advised by NSW Health on Tuesday night that a person who visited their venue on two occasions last week has received a positive test.
The person visited the club at 8pm on Friday as well as between midnight and 2.30 on Sunday morning, the venue said in a Facebook post today.
It is not known if they are the same person who departed the nearby Macarthur Tavern at midnight on Sunday morning, causing the closure of that venue overnight.
Wests League Club was closed at 11.30pm last night for a deep clean and will reopen at midday today.
"By the time that we re-open, there will have been over 100+ man hours of cleaning and sanitising from additional staff and contractors to ensure that our Club is cleaner than it has ever been," the venue said on Facebook.
Some hospitals at capacity because of coronavirus: AMA president
By Dana McCauley
Australian Medical Association President Tony Bartone has said some hospitals are already "at capacity" and struggling to roster enough healthcare workers as the number of staff sent home due to outbreaks continues to climb.
"What we are finding is that hospital doctors and nurses are under the pump, in terms of being able to man rosters because of infections or, indeed, having to isolate because of contacts with people who’ve become infected," Dr Bartone told Channel 7's Sunrise on Wednesday morning.
"That's where we're needing to actually boost or surge that workforce capacity, at the moment, to fill the gaps for people who, because of infection or needing to be in isolation, are not available for shifts."
Australian Medical Association president Tony Bartone.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Dr Bartone said there was no shortage of equipment or beds to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak, but that "strategic workforce planning" was crucial.
The Age and Sydney Morning Herald revealed on Wednesday that more than 14,000 healthcare workers, including about 4000 nurses and 1260 doctors, are on the Victorian government's surge workforce database.
On Tuesday, the number of healthcare workers with active COVID-19 infections was 114, with outbreaks spread across a dozen hospitals and 35 aged care services.
Victoria's health department has refused to confirm the number of workers who have been furloughed to self-isolate for 14 days, but multiple sources suggest it is more than 1000, with individual hospitals forced to send hundreds of staff home.
"In terms of equipment and in terms of number of beds, we're coping and indeed, the plans are there to ramp it up," Dr Bartone said.
"That's where all the Chief Medical Officers of all the States and Territories and AHPPC have been working together, from the beginning, in terms of planning for an eventuality of the proportions we're seeing now."
Victoria recorded 270 new COVID-19 infections on Tuesday, bringing the total number of active cases to 1803, with 85 people in hospital and 26 in intensive care, including 21 on ventilators.
The state has 660 ICU beds, with about 1000 ventilators ready to be set up and plans to build hundreds more physical bed spaces, with thousands more ventilators on order.
The federal government also has about 7500 ventilators in the national medical stockpile.
Of the existing 660 beds, 446 were staffed on Friday, with fewer than 60 lying empty as about 370 were being used to treat patients admitted for reasons other than COVID-19, such as car accidents, heart attacks, strokes and recovery from surgery.
While the Victorian government announced funding for 4000 extra ICU beds in April, it remains unclear when this number will be delivered.
Dr Bartone said 4000 was "an extraordinary number of ICU beds" and that if the state reached a point where it needed that many, it would have "tens of thousands of people in hospital and ... an even a much more extraordinary number of cases being reported."
He said the state was "well off any need for that quantum ... at the moment."
Where are active coronavirus cases in Victoria?
This map shows the location of active coronavirus cases recorded in Victoria:
Keep in mind this is the data as of yesterday. We do not yet know today's daily increase for Victoria, and the detailed local government area-level breakdowns tend to be published later in the afternoon. As the state records more cases, this detailed data is often being put out later and later in the afternoon.
Quite a few readers have contacted me today asking why the numbers displayed here differ from those on the Victorian health department's own dashboard.
The data I use also comes from the health department, but is based on a daily update they send out as is the go-to source for these numbers. I suspect their dashboard is updated at a different time of day so sometimes there is a lag between the two sources.
You can see a detailed breakdown of active case numbers by local government area over time in this article: Ten graphs that show Victoria's coronavirus trends
This morning's press conferences
New South Wales Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant and Health Minister Brad Hazzard will be providing an update on the state's coronavirus situation at 11am this morning.
There will be a separate press conference from the Northern Territory Chief Minister Michael Gunner sometime this morning as well, in which he will be talking about the uptick in coronavirus cases in parts of Sydney.
As of yet there doesn't appear to have been a time set for the daily coronavirus update for Victoria.
Another pub in south-west Sydney announces COVID-19 case
By Mary Ward
Another pub in south-west Sydney says it has been informed by NSW Health that a patron who attended their venue has tested positive for coronavirus.
The Macarthur Tavern in Campbelltown shared the news on Facebook this morning.
The patron attended the venue on Saturday between 9pm and midnight, it said in the post.
“There is no requirement for the premises to shut down or for any member of staff or patron to self-isolate but they will need to remain vigilant for any respiratory symptoms and get tested immediately and self-isolate should symptoms develop,” it added.
It is not known if the case was reported in yesterday's numbers, or linked to the Crossroads Hotel outbreak.
The pub will reopen at 3pm today after a deep clean.
NSW Health has been contacted for comment.
Health workers honoured at France's Bastille Day
France held a scaled-down annual Bastille Day celebration, with none of the usual tanks and troops parading down the Champs-Elysees in Paris, in a concession to the pandemic still stalking Europe.
France has recorded more than 200,000 coronavirus cases and 30,000 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Reuters, with Craig Butt
First batch of Queenslanders who visited Crossroads Hotel get COVID-19 test results
By Toby Crockford
Eleven of the 18 Queenslanders who came forward to state health officials and said they had visited the Crossroads Hotel in NSW, which is the source of a coronavirus outbreak, have tested negative for COVID-19.
Queensland Deputy Premier and Health Minister Steven Miles says the remaining seven people in home quarantine in connection with the hotel are still awaiting their test results.
"We are concerned [there may be other Queenslanders who visited the Crossroads Hotel and have not come forward yet]," Mr Miles told ABC News.
Medical staff at a pop-up COVID-19 testing clinic in Casula in NSW, where the local Crossroads Hotel is now a hot spot.Credit:Getty Images
"We understand it's a very popular stopping spot off the Hume Highway and that there were roughly 4000 patrons during that period of time [July 3-10].
"A lot of people went there and no doubt there probably are other Queenslanders who visited the pub on those dates and we'd urge them to come forward and get tested immediately."
The NSW local government areas of Liverpool and Campbelltown were declared COVID-19 hot spots by Queensland chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young yesterday.
Anyone who has visited or come from these areas in the past two weeks will be refused entry into Queensland. However, if the person is a Queensland resident, they will be allowed in, but must go into quarantine for two weeks.
Think-tank renews call for virus elimination strategy
By Paul Sakkal
Stephen Duckett, a health economist from think-tank the Grattan Institute, has renewed his call for Victorian health authorities to declare a goal of eliminating the virus in the state.
The former secretary of the federal Health Department said the economic costs of rolling lockdowns when outbreaks occur until a vaccine is developed would be greater than a shorter period of strict lockdown that could drive daily case numbers down to zero for an extended period of time.
Victorian Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton has often been asked if he is considering shifting strategies. He has not ruled out the possibility but points to National Cabinet’s suppression policy, which aims to ensure the virus only circulates at low levels.
“If we continue this yo-yo strategy for the next 12 months, will that cost more than a hard lockdown for a six-eight week period?” Mr Duckett said.
“With 200 or so new [daily] cases it doesn’t look like [elimination] is feasible. But those cases with current lockdown will come back into teens then into single digits.”
“We can see this as possible, we just need to look across those borders at South Australia and Queensland … this isn’t a fantasy-land.”
Mr Duckett acknowledged the heightened mental health costs and social dislocation caused by a hard lockdown, but said the long-term benefit of wiping out the virus would provide long-term certainty for sections of the community including businesses and the education sector.
He predicted NSW health authorities would be able to get cases back to single-digit growth in next week or so, unless the Crossroads pub outbreak spiralled.
'Bring a book' says local mayor as testing queues stretch over a kilometre
By Mary Ward
The mayor of Wollondilly Shire on Sydney's south-west fringe has asked people to consider travelling elsewhere in Sydney for coronavirus testing as queues stretched over a kilometre for the second time in a row this morning.
Calling into 2GB, Matthew Deeth asked people to please travel to other locations rather than leaving the queue at Victoria Park in Picton, which he said was over a kilometre in length half an hour before the site opened at 8.30am.
"Otherwise bring a book and feel free to sit in the queue," he said.
Cars queued for nearly a kilometre to attend a pop-up mobile clinic in Victoria Park, in south-west Sydney, yesterday. Credit:Dean Sewell
Cr Deeth said the queues at the site reached 1.5 kilometres yesterday.
Other nearby sites include hospital clinics at Campbelltown and Bowral hospitals. Testing can also be carried out by a GP.
'Not surprising' NSW's new coronavirus cases are linked to Melbourne outbreak
By Mary Ward
Health Minister Greg Hunt said it was "not surprising" NSW Health had linked their increase in cases to the Melbourne outbreak.
Asked to comment on NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian's comments last night that she would not be pursuing a citywide lockdown and instead wanted to manage outbreaks, Mr Hunt said pursuing suppression rather than elimination was "simply being honest" about life in a global pandemic.
"Our goal remains as close to zero as possible. But ... if somebody were arguing for that, that would mean obviously clearly no gatherings, no protests, no trade, no returnees from overseas, no family reunions, none of those human contacts," he said.
"In a world with over 13 million cases, and clearly it's going to head towards 20 million at some stage, and with over 575,000 lives lost, we need to be honest that this is a global pandemic [and] nobody is immune. Therefore, we have to prepare."
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2020-07-15 00:21:00Z
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