A further two weeks of harsher lockdowns for NSW as SA closes border to Victoria

That’s where we’ll leave the blog for today

Thank you for joining us. We’ll see you all tomorrow.

Have any details been released of the latest COVID death in NSW? Gotta feel for the family 🙁

-Sad stuff

All we know is it was a man in his late-80s from south-eastern Sydney who died yesterday. Our sincere sympathies go out to his family.

ACT travellers can still go to Tasmania 

Hello Jacqueline, regarding the border closures with Tassie and NSW, does this include the ACT? I can’t find any reference either way. Thanks in advance.

-Jude

Tasmania’s travel restrictions site lists the ACT as low-risk, meaning there are no quarantine requirements for travellers entering the state.

You can have a read of the current restrictions on entering Tasmania here.

Tradies in protest over NSW halting construction

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A number of people working in construction are protesting new restrictions that mean all non-urgent work is on pause for the duration of the lockdown affecting Greater Sydney, the Blue Mountains, Central Coast, Wollongong and Shellharbour.

AFL players forced into quarantine after attending exposure sites 

i have heard that there is a number of AFL players and officials who visited Tier 1 exposure sites – they have been tested negative and will do their 14 day quarantine period – do you know if they are allowed to play?

-Steven

That is correct. In total, there are eight AFL clubs tied up in COVID-19 drama.

Essendon, Collingwood, GWS, Hawthorn, North Melbourne, St Kilda, Sydney and the Western Bulldogs have all been caught up in the drama.

Some of the players and staff involved attended last Tuesday’s Wallabies Test against France at AAMI Park.

The rugby union Test has been upgraded to a tier 1 exposure site since some teams — the Bombers, Giants, Kangaroos, Swans and Bulldogs — arrived in Queensland on Thursday.

The AFL has notified the Queensland government and said “a number” of players and staff are classified as tier 1, which enforces a mandatory 14-day quarantine period regardless of test results.

But the majority of attendees at the Wallabies Test from the AFL clubs are classified as tier 3, which only requires them to monitor for symptoms and get tested if they feel unwell.

Players who are undergoing 14 days of quarantine will not be allowed to leave to play games.

“We will continue to make the necessary decisions to best protect the competition and the wider community.,” AFL general manager of football Andrew Dillon said in a statement on Saturday.

You can read more on this here.

A welfare check on Tasmania’s Dr Scott McKeown

Many of you wrote in to the blog concerned about Dr Scott McKeown, who got emotional during Tasmania’s COVID press conference this afternoon. We checked in to see if he’s okay and received the following response:

A Tasmanian Government spokesperson said Dr McKeown has had a difficult week, and felt overwhelmed due to the nature of the decisions having to be made this past week. They said he currently has support around him.

Catch up on the press conference out of Tasmania 

Any chance of a link to Tasmanian press conference please?

-Taswegian

I looked far and wide for a YouTube link to share with you, but came up empty.

You can find the press conference on Facebook via ABC Hobart:

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Or, because some of you have mentioned the link is buggy, via Peter Gutwein’s Facebook page here:

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Here’s what we know about the men charged for breaching Sydney’s lockdown rules

Police have charged three men who allegedly knew they had COVID-19 but still travelled from Sydney to the state’s Central West.

These are not the removalists that travelled from NSW to Victoria, sparking a COVID outbreak there.

Just after 2:30pm yesterday, officers spoke to four men — two aged 27, one aged 21 and one aged 49 — in Molong, about 300km from Sydney, after receiving information they had travelled from West Hoxton, in the Liverpool local government area (LGA).

The Liverpool LGA, in Sydney’s south-west, has been identified as an area of particular concern in NSW’s outbreak of the Delta COVID-19 variant.

The men were working as removalists.

It will be alleged the younger three men made the journey despite being notified they had tested positive for the virus.

Before travelling to Molong, police say the men went to Figtree in the Illawarra region, and also stopped in South Bowenfels and Orange.

“This thoughtless act has now placed our regional communities in NSW at the greatest risk so far with this pandemic,” Police Minister David Elliott said.

Read the full story here.

Isolated residents delighted with check-in calls from young volunteers during Greater Sydney’s lockdown

As the Greater Sydney lockdown continues, almost a dozen like-minded teenagers and young people have joined forces to check the welfare of more vulnerable residents.

The volunteers are surprising people in the Hawkesbury and Blue Mountains regions to make sure people are safe and have everything they need to make it through the lockdown.

Seventeen-year-old Stephanie Chaseling from Kurrajong in NSW’s Hawkesbury region is volunteering at her local federal MP’s office as part of her Year 12 studies.

She is one of about 10 to 15 passionate community members that Macquarie MP, Susan Templeman, has brought together as an unofficial youth advisory group.

They may have different political standings, but they have at least one thing in common — helping their community.

The volunteers came up with the idea of doing welfare checks when the Greater Sydney lockdown began.

Read the full story here. 

Who was the person in the Tassie presser who got really emotional doing the update? Just shows how much these officials feel what it is they have to do.

-Emotional

 That was Dr Scott McKeown, the Deputy Director of Public Health. 

Hi all, I’m jumping on the blog for a short while as developments continue through this afternoon.

Breaking: Police have charged three removalists who allegedly knew they had COVID-19 but still travelled from Sydney to the state’s Central West.

Just after 2:30pm yesterday, officers spoke to four men in Molong, about 300km from Sydney, after receiving information they had travelled from West Hoxton, in the Liverpool local government area (LGA).

These men are not the removalists that travelled from NSW to Victoria, sparking an outbreak there. 

The Liverpool LGA, in Sydney’s south west, has been identified as an area of particular concern in NSW’s outbreak of the Delta COVID-19 variant.

It will be alleged the younger three men made the journey despite being notified they had tested positive for the virus.

Police Minister David Elliott said: “We know that the Delta variant is highly transmissible, and it is unfathomable to think that, with all the public information and health warnings, people could so blatantly ignore the health orders.”

About 500 people in home quarantine in Tasmania after returning from high-risk areas

Peter Gutwein says they’ve logged hundreds of compliance checks. 

There were 900 COVID tests administered yesterday. 

Premier Peter Gutwein declares regional NSW high-risk area

This is from midnight tonight.

Tasmania’s borders will be closed to NSW.