In an attempt to prevent Delta spread, Sydney’s eastern suburbs receive priority access to Pfizer vaccines, and Victoria’s extends lockdown.
The Delta variant is running rampant around the country, and all states – particularly NSW – are feeling it.
As of today, NSW Health has confirmed that there were an additional 1,293 positive cases of COVID-19, with 840 people in hospital, 137 in the ICU and four deaths.
In an effort to prevent the virus from spreading to other Sydney councils, priority Pfizer vaccines will be distributed to the eastern suburbs.
According to 9 News, health authorities are closely watching “the Randwick and Bayside areas” after a party in Maroubra was deemed a super spreader event.
It’s being estimated that a minimum of 16 partygoers caught COVID-19, with authorities speculating that around 60 people were at the event.
Eastern suburbs have been given priority access to vaccines, so they can all get ready for their picnics next week #COVID19nsw
— Shannon 💜 (@WickedDreamer) August 30, 2021
At today’s press conference, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has stressed the importance of vaccinations and how they’re the main solution for driving case numbers down.
“Every day when the case numbers come out, the more people who are double-dosed vaccinated in those case numbers, the more resilient they’ll be and the less chance that they’ll have to go into hospital,” the Premier said. “As our vaccination rates go up, the hospitalisation rate of cases is likely to come down.”
In the meantime, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has extended Melbourne’s lockdown after the city recorded 92 new cases on Sunday. It was originally meant to end this Thursday.
Andrews explained his actions by saying the following:
“Obviously with almost 100 cases today, where many of them remain mysteries, many of them were out in the community during their infectious period, it is not going to be possible for us to open up our Victorian community in just a couple of days’ time.”
Another week is about to start, another week In lockdown here we come. How much longer are we meant to deal with this?!… This 6th lockdown is brutal. #victorialockdown
— Ashleigh Jade (@ashleighjross) August 29, 2021
As of now, the Victorian Premier has not confirmed a date for when the state’s lockdown will end. Instead, Andrews has said he and his team will listen to the experts and “look at all the different options”.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Australia has reached 47,840 confirmed cases of COVID-19. This has consequently resulted in a rising number of fatalities, where 989 people have died from the virus.
Currently, 17,150,654 vaccines have been administered.
Australia is currently engaging in 5 separate agreements to receive over ‘280 million doses‘ of COVID-19 vaccines.
