Australia COVID LIVE updates: NSW could lead nation on vaccine charge, Greg Hunt says don’t wait for Pfizer, Queensland in snap lockdown

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard says whether Sydney returns to zero cases or emerges from lockdown in four weeks is “entirely dependent on the response of the community”.

Here’s how he responded to some pointed questions about the city’s lockdown and modelling from host David Speers on ABC’s Insiders:

Question: Is there modelling showing you’ll get to zero in four weeks?
Answer: “It’s entirely dependent on the response of the community.”

Question: But what does it show at the moment? Have you got any modelling that says, “This will be over in four weeks”?
Answer: “Obviously, Dr Chant is hopeful that that will occur. But, again, it depends. The modelling depends on the input. The input is how many people are going to have the vaccine, how many people are going to stay at home. And that’s the unknown.”

Question: If it’s not at zero in four weeks, what happens? Do you keep on with the lockdown?
Answer: I’m not going to postulate on that at this stage. We’re focused on getting our vaccines up. And we’re trying to get people to stay at home... We are quite concerned at the numbers continuing to remain relatively high. They’re bouncing around. What is positive, of course, is that they’re not going up in a rapid way, they’re staying around about the same figures.

Question: With the vaccination rate where it’s at, you wouldn’t lift restrictions if you’ve still got a lot of cases in the community, would you?
Answer: I think that that’s probably a position that would be adopted, but let’s face it - we don’t know yet. Let’s just go with what we need to do at the moment.

Mr Hazzard said the state had not delayed in following health advice to introduce a lockdown in June. “There was no delay. On each and every occasion, we respond to our public health team,” he said.

“I think what people don’t understand is that [there’s] the public health team and then there’s the health team, who also look at mental health issues, and the economic team who also look at trying to keep the state’s economy going.

“Like every difficult decision, it’s a balance. But what I would say to the community is we have seen some very positive moves ... This is about the community actually responding and actually getting involved in getting the vaccines.”

He said Victorians had responded well to the mixed messages on vaccines, with the community prepared to receive both AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines. “In NSW, five or six weeks ago we were finding it challenging to get people to have the vaccines. Now we’re finding, as a result of this current circumstance, that a lot more people are now seeking the vaccine,” Mr Hazzard said.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard is appearing on the ABC’s Insiders program this morning, where he has defended there being harsher restrictions on west and south-west Sydney than the rest of the city.

“What we do know is that when we locked down the Northern Beaches over Christmas [and] New Year, there was a high level of compliance and it worked. We found a high level of compliance in the eastern suburbs,” he said.

But Mr Hazzard said health authorities were struggling to gain confidence of some communities in south-west and western Sydney, particularly refugee communities which have a higher distrust of government and law enforcement because of their prior experiences.

“We are finding it more challenging, for all the reasons [the show] was talking about before. I mean, the community there has an incredible multicultural mix, it’s a very vibrant community, but they do come from countries where they haven’t built up trust in government. So, what we need to be doing in our view, is to focus on that specific area,” he said.

“We are challenged in the south-western suburbs... It’s a very difficult community to gain the confidence of and to have them respond in the way that we need them to respond.”

Mr Hazzard was then asked about the man with COVID-19 whose family took him to hospital but was dead upon arrival. “I’d rather not go into the family’s personal circumstances,” he said.

“But what I will say... What we’re seeing in particular, is refugee family groups are often large families, and often there might only be one or two people in the family who are income earners. And we’re seeing a reluctance for them to come to health authorities and say, ‘We have a problem in our household.’

“They worry that they’ll be treated the way they might have been treated back home in their own countries. They’ve suffered greatly in their own nations, in their own countries. What we are trying to do is tell them, if you have got any symptoms at all or have been in contact with positive cases, please come forward to health. [NSW] Health is only there to look after you. Of course, that’s a very hard message to get through in some circumstances.”

Mr Hazzard said NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant had not suggested that all rules across Sydney needed to be uniform. “We already have requirements that everybody stay at home,” he said. “But certainly in these eight local government areas, it’s very challenging. So, we’re trying to strike the balance, and I think the balance is appropriate.”

Four federal Labor MPs have backed a royal commission into Australia’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, arguing the inquiry will provide vital lessons for the future.

Victorian MP Julian Hill, Queensland MP Anika Wells and Western Australian MPs Patrick Gorman and Anne Aly all threw cautious support behind the idea of a non-partisan inquiry - which is not official Labor policy - and suggested the best time to start would be in early 2022. Independent senator Rex Patrick has already called for a royal commission into the response to the pandemic.

There have been nine royal commissions ordered by federal governments in the last decade, including most recently into veterans’ suicide, the banking sector and aged care.

The four MPs stressed a royal commission into the handling of the pandemic would examine a range of issues including the Ruby Princess cruise ship outbreak, Victoria’s deadly second wave - both of which have already been subject to state inquiries - and Australia’s vaccine purchasing strategy.

Mr Hill said a royal commission into Australia’s pandemic response was inevitable, given the scale of the event, the many failings and the importance of learning and recording lessons for future generations.

“Right now seems a little early given the crisis of the vaccine roll out, the failing quarantine program and the Sydney disaster. But planning or scoping should quietly begin with a view to starting some time next year,” he said. “It should be a bipartisan endeavour, not a political witch hunt.”

Ms Wells said that increasingly royal commissions were being used as a substitute for good government but a “once in a century pandemic” called for a royal commission.

“The pandemic has lit up structural problems such as insecure work and a lack of local manufacturing for things such as being able to make mRNA vaccines and PPE”.

Read the full story here.

Health Minister Brad Hazzard says NSW could be the first state in Australia to reach the new national target of 70 per cent of adults vaccinated against coronavirus, but insisted Sydney’s emergence from lockdown was not dependent on reaching that target.

Mr Hazzard has told reporters Tom Rabe and Sarah McPhee it would take NSW about four months to hit the national cabinet target of 70 per cent full vaccination – when lockdown and border restrictions will be softened. Once the country hits 80 per cent, broad lockdowns will not be used in major cities.

“Our future is in every one of our hands ... We could be the first state to lead Australia out of this if everyone gets on board,” Mr Hazzard told this masthead. “We could be looking very good in a relatively short amount of time.”

But while Mr Hazzard was confident NSW could reach the 70 per cent mark relatively quickly, others in the state cabinet said the new target set by national cabinet was “ultra-conservative”.

“That target range has a lot of cotton wool wrapped around it,” a senior NSW minister speaking on the condition of anonymity said.

This differs from what health experts have to say, according to political correspondent James Massola’s report today. Health experts and epidemiologists told him that the 70 per cent vaccination target for adult Australians is too low to achieve herd immunity.

Grattan Institute Health program director Stephen Duckett said the 70 per cent of adults figure was actually about 56 per cent of the entire population and “it’s a very risky strategy”. “The targets they have set are too low, even if they are assuming that the virus is not very transmissible,” he said.

Professor Duckett said five to six million extra people - including the huge cohort of people under the age of 16 - also needed to be vaccinated for Australia to open up safely.

Victoria has recorded four new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 today.

All four cases are linked to the current outbreaks and have been in quarantine throughout their entire infectious period, according to the Department of Health.

There are now 161 active cases across the state, a reduction of 19 from yesterday. More than 25,700 test results were received in the past 24 hours to midnight and 15,841 vaccine doses were administered across the state.

Frustrated regional and rural leaders in NSW have said they “haven’t got a hope in hell” if Sydney’s COVID-19 outbreak leaks into their communities and are seeking clarity from the NSW government after it diverted up to 40,000 of their Pfizer doses to Year 12 students in the city’s most affected suburbs.

People outside Greater Sydney began receiving text messages on Friday and Saturday from NSW Health advising their Pfizer vaccination appointment will need to be rescheduled to assist in vaccinating Year 12 students in south-west and western Sydney to help them return to face-to-face teaching.

One man, David Smith, took to social media to say his booking over a month away was cancelled. He said he was a teacher living next to a hot zone and with a family member in the highest-risk category, and all of his teacher colleagues were receiving the same message.

Murrumbidgee Mayor Ruth McRae said her community in southern NSW want to know where the doses will be taken from exactly, whether they are guaranteed a replenished supply and how it will push out the timeline.

In a statement sent to the Herald last night, NSW Health apologised for the inconvenience and thanked people for their patience.

“As part of its pandemic response, NSW Health is taking this important temporary measure to also give us the best chance of containing the current outbreak in Greater Sydney as quickly as possible,” it said.

“As a result, people in other regions could receive a notice advising their first dose of Pfizer will be rescheduled. Anyone who has had their first dose already or those in priority groups 1a or 1b will not have their bookings rescheduled.”

First up, Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt has warned Australians should not wait to be vaccinated with the Pfizer jab, as new data from the federal Health Department reveals just 1 per cent of the 2702 people who have caught COVID-19 in Sydney’s Delta outbreak were fully vaccinated.

Of the 15 people who were fully vaccinated but still caught COVID, none needed hospitalisation and none died.

Just 5 per cent of cases, or 141 people, caught COVID after having one jab, with the partially vaccinated accounting for 6 per cent of hospital cases, 4 per cent of ICU cases and 8 per cent of deaths.

A total of 2164 people, or 80 per cent of cases, were among the unvaccinated who also made up 87 per cent of hospital admissions, 91 per cent of ICU patients and 85 per cent of deaths.

Mr Hunt said that the data showed that the AstraZeneca vaccine - which is widely available but which some Australians have resisted taking because of changing health advice about the risk of blood clots that can lead to death - is equally effective as Pfizer against the virus.

“Either vaccine can protect your life or protect the life of your loved ones,” he said.

Read the full report here.

Good morning, and welcome to today’s live coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic. I’m Natassia Chrysanthos and I’ll be with you until the early afternoon.

Sydney recorded 201 new cases yesterday, including 138 people under the age of 40 who were only recently approved to receive the AstraZeneca vaccine and who cannot get Pfizer yet. Greater Sydney is entering its sixth week of lockdown today.

Eleven local government areas in south-east Queensland also entered a snap three-day lockdown yesterday after six new community cases were recorded, throwing the NRL and AFL weekend games into disarray.

Victoria declared those parts of south-east Queensland a ‘red-zone’ as it recorded two new cases yesterday. Anyone in NSW who has been to the affected Queensland LGAs since July 21 must now follow stay-at-home orders.

Stay tuned for today’s updates.