Australia news LIVE NSW records 136 new local COVID-19 cases as Victoria records 14 cases TGA approves Pfizer vaccine for children

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NSW declined an early July offer of Defence Force assistance in an operation targeting the COVID-19 outbreak in south-west Sydney, NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller said on Friday evening.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian passed on the offer made on July 7, Mr Fuller said, as the police force was already planning an operation that was launched on July 9.

NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller.Credit:Wolter Peeters

In a statement, Mr Fuller said he supported the close relationship NSW Police and the Defence Force had formed during joint operations on bushfires and the COVID-19 response.

“However, it was determined the police operational response didn’t require external assistance in the south western Sydney operation given the transmission of the virus was between household contacts, not primarily occurring on the streets,” the statement said.

“Commissioner Fuller thanks the Prime Minister for his continued support.“NSW Police Minister David Elliott backed the Commissioner’s position and praised police for their “tireless efforts throughout these operations”.

Many readers have asked why NSW has not adopted harsher restrictions such as those adopted by Victoria.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has ruled out implementing tougher “symbolic” restrictions, such as night curfews and preventing outdoor exercise, saying there was no science behind such measures.

Two leading epidemiologists have backed that approach, saying blunt tools such as installing a “ring of steel” around Sydney as advocated by Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews are not necessarily useful and come with major consequences. (A ring of steel would involve roadblocks around Greater Sydney’s perimeter, patrolled by police).

Deakin University epidemiologist Catherine Bennett said all restrictions must be targeted and contextual.

“We just have to be really mindful â€" all these interventions come with a cost, and we don’t always think through what the consequences are,” Professor Bennett said.

Punitive restrictions “can make people more anxious, and they’re already the people complying”, while simultaneously “make people more rebellious who aren’t complying” anyway.

Mobility data shows Sydneysiders are driving, commuting and walking less than at any time since the first lockdown in April last year.

Professor Bennett urged authorities to constantly review the effectiveness of each restriction, rejecting the notion that restrictions are “part of a package” and therefore could not be individually unwound if they weren’t useful.

University of Melbourne clinical epidemiologist Nancy Baxter said it was vital that all restrictions were contextual.

“If you’re strolling around a park and there’s no one around you, masks don’t make much sense,” she said.

Read more here.

The Commonwealth Bank says about two thousand customers have applied to put their mortgage payments on hold as a result of the lockdowns in NSW and Victoria.

After banks recently started allowing customers to pause their repayments, CBA group executive in charge of retail banking, Angus Sullivan, said about 30,000 people had visited the page of its website outlining assistance for pandemic-affected borrowers.

About 2000 CBA customers have asked to pause mortgage repayments.Credit:Peter Braig

“We’ve had a couple of thousand take advantage of the deferral to date,” Mr Sullivan said.

“We know it’s a tough time for so many people, especially those sectors, [for example] construction, that have been particularly hard-hit this time,” he said.

As a result of the latest lockdowns, the country’s major banks are once again allowing customers to temporarily put their repayments on hold.

Mr Sullivan said the number of people taking out deferrals so was “pretty modest” compared with the near 150,000 loans that were deferred by CBA last year.

More than half of the deferrals were in NSW, and the requests for help were skewed towards the construction sector.

West Australian Premier Mark McGowan is, predictably, going in hard against NSW at his COVID-19 update.

NSW’s measures to stop the spread of the highly transmissible Delta strain of the virus had been “half-baked” and “it’s not a time for half measures”, he said.

“Vaccinations are not a substitute for a lockdown,” Mr McGowan said.

WA Premier Mark McGowan.Credit:Hamish Hastie

The NSW Premier called this morning for more vaccines to be directed to coronavirus hotspot areas in Sydney’s south-west and west, amid a warning from the state’s Chief Health Officer that the outbreak in the state was a national emergency.

Mr McGowan said vaccination would help prevent a future outbreak but only a lockdown would “crush and kill” the current outbreak in NSW. He said the Commonwealth understood that lockdowns were the key to suppressing an outbreak.

He said “NSW is not an island; Sydney’s not an island” and the outbreak in the state posed a risk to the whole country. He said some of the state’s rules about exercise “frankly, are inexplicable”.

“I see all these images of people running around outside as though nothing’s happening now, no one’s wearing a mask, all these people are at outdoor gyms lifting weights and mixing with one another,” he said.

“They have an approach where they have some local governments locked down, then across the road they’re not to the same degree. Those sorts of measures are half-baked.”

He suggested NSW needed to tighten all restrictions, from mask-wearing, to locking down the state uniformly, to involving the Defence Force.

“All of these things need to be out in place.”

He said he shared the view of his Victorian counterpart Daniel Andrews that his government would not be sending jabs east.

“We’re not going to hand over vaccines,” he said. “I understand the point of view, I don’t want to be too hard ... and say, ‘were not giving up our vaccines’... but I don’t think that it’s sensible to do that.

“We have a nationally-agreed approach; we just need to roll it out as efficiently and quickly as we possibly can across all states and territories.”

West Australian Premier Mark McGowan is providing a COVID-19 update. You can watch it live here.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said lockdowns were “the most important factor in arresting the growth” of COVID-19 cases and that NSW did appear to be preventing the exponential growth seen elsewhere in the world.

“There is nothing light about the lockdown in Sydney, I can assure you. My family are in it,” Mr Morrison said.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Friday.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

“From the data we see coming out in NSW ... they have prevented the exponential growth we have seen in other countries, which has taken hold with Delta.

“So they have been able to suppress that exponential rate of growth, which is very important. So when you have exponential growth in cases that’s what you would call out of control. And that’s not occurring in NSW.”

After NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said she wanted the NSW outbreak to be declared a national emergency, Mr Morrison said he had been treating COVID-19 as one since the start of 2020.

“That hasn’t changed in that entirety of the time we have been managing this pandemic. Lives and livelihoods have been at stake right across the country during this entire period,” he said.

On the question of whether NSW rejected an offer of Defence Force help, Prime Minister Scott Morrison noted troops had been on offer “for some time” and had assisted Victoria during its lockdown last year.

He said Defence involvement was specifically not an enforcement or compliance mechanism because that was a role for state authorities.

“Last year the defence forces, through Operation COVID Assist, in Victoria, were enormously helpful.

“That includes planning, logistics and liaison support through their agencies. It includes qualified medical personnel supporting testing locations, it included supporting Victoria Police through metropolitan control points. There was also support for contact tracing and data management.”

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says the vaccination program around the rest of the country will not be disrupted to ship extra doses to NSW, after the state called for additional vaccines to be directed to COVID-19 hotspot areas in Sydney’s south-west and west.

But he said national cabinet had made tweaks to the vaccine program in order to get as many people covered by first doses of vaccines in NSW as quickly as possible.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Friday.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

It hopes to confirm within the next 24 hours a change that will push the delivery of second doses of Pfizer out from three weeks to six weeks in NSW state clinics. This comes after ATAGI recommended the wait between doses of AstraZeneca be shortened from 12 weeks to four.

Mr Morrison said there was “widespread agreement” in national cabinet “that we need to continue to lean into AstraZeneca, particularly in New South Wales”.

“But we’re not going to disrupt the vaccination program around the rest of the country. That vaccination program is going and is hitting its marks and we want that to continue.”

He noted the state had already been given an extra 150,000 doses of Pfizer and 160,000 of AstraZeneca over recent weeks.

“The Delta strain of the virus is obviously very fast transmitting and we need all the other states and territories to be continuing to get up to the marks that we needed to set for ourselves to ensure we can get this job done this year,” he said.

Nearly 350,000 people across Sydney have received income support during the lockdown, with $290 million in payments landing in their bank accounts. Another 25,000 claims have been processed in Victoria.

“That payment will keep coming week after week after week, for as long as the lockdown goes. You do not have to go back and reapply for that payment,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison said.

There has been another record day in COVID-19 vaccine delivery, with almost 200,000 doses given over the past 24 hours.

The Prime Minister again urged everyone who could to keep booking in their vaccinations and heading to appointments.

“Both vaccines work effectively. Both vaccines are licensed for use in this country,” he said, referring to the Pfizer and AstraZeneca products.

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