There has been a further 112 Covid-19 cases in NSW today, with a growing cluster in Sydney’s south west a particular worry.
The outbreak in Sydney appears to be out of control, ABC journalist Elias Clure told Jesse Mulligan.
“The real concern for the [NSW] Government is just the enormity of cases coming from a specific part of Sydney, that’s the southwest, the Fairfield area.
The Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge are reflected in the window of a closed restaurant at Milson's Point, during lockdown in Sydney Photo: Anadolu Agency via AFP
“There was a statistic released this morning that 1 in 20 people getting tested at the Fairfield showground testing sites were returning positive tests,” Clure says.
The state has now recorded 670 cases of the highly contagious Delta variant since 16 June.
Sydney’s in lockdown but it has not been strict enough according to some critics, he says.
“As someone who lived in Melbourne last year for that lockdown it seems the rules were certainly more hard-line, so people in Victoria are calling this Sydney lockdown a “mockdown” because there seems to have been a number of breaches.”
There is also concern about the number of retail stores are still open, Clure says.
“You are really only allowed to leave your house for four reasons; to get vaccinated, to buy medicines and to basically perform essential services.
“However, you can still shop at Ikea, you can go shopping in Kmart for a table or a desk, so a number of people are querying why a number of those stores are still allowed to be operating, because when they are open, people will go to them.”
The vaccination roll-out remains sluggish, he says. With only 8 percent of the population having had a jab.
“The vaccination roll out is really a thorn in the side of this federal coalition government. With rates of only 8 percent and now with the Delta variant all but out of control here in Sydney they are doing everything they can to lift those rates, but there’s confusion over which vaccination people can get and there is a long waiting list for the more popular vaccine which is Pfizer.”
Australia put its eggs in one basket backing the AstraZeneca vaccine, but there has been conflicting and confused information about that, he says.
“We’ve got the Chief Health Officer in Queensland Janette Young has basically advised people not to get the AstraZeneca vaccine.
When you’ve got a senior health official in a major state saying people shouldn’t get AstraZeneca what sort of message does that send people in the community?”
Meanwhile there is a long waiting list for the preferred Pfizer vaccine.
“The waiting list is extraordinary, I’ve spoken to people for stories I’m doing that have underlying health conditions and they have had to wait three or four weeks to get their first jab.”
Sydneysiders are resigned to the lockdown dragging on, Clure says.
“It was due to lift Friday this week, that is almost certainly not going to happen, it will probably be another 2 or 3 weeks at least, at the very least, so people here in Sydney are just over it, they are quite sick of it the handling of the vaccination roll out in particular.”
Eighteen months on since Australia’s first case there is a sense of disappointment, he says.
“The NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian was always very ideologically opposed to lockdowns, she held off for pretty much as long as possible even though people were urging the Government to just call a very short sharp lockdown.”
That technique, as used in New Zealand, Victoria and WA seems to be effective, he says.
“Their approach had been a few cases flare up to just lock down for a few days to get to zero cases then reopen the community.
“By the time NSW was in lockdown really it was out of control.”
