Sydney’s poorest neighborhoods yesterday braced for military enforcement of the city’s toughest and longest lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic, as the infection numbers held persistently high five weeks since restrictions began.
With the city of 5 million people ordered to stay home amid an outbreak of the highly transmissible Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, authorities outlined even tighter restrictions for the worst affected suburbs, including mandatory testing and mask-wearing outdoors.
From Monday, about 300 Australian army personnel would help police door-knock people who have tested positive to the virus to ensure they are isolating, New South Wales Police Commissioner Mick Fuller told a televised news conference.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“The sheer volume of increase over the last week [means] the level of compliance [enforcement] has gone from hundreds into thousands,” he said.
The amped-up military and police presence would cover the breadth of Australia’s largest city, but mainly eight local government districts in the city’s west — home to 2 million people — where most new cases have been reported.
As the city entered its sixth week of a planned nine-week lockdown, New South Wales state reported 170 new local cases, most in the state capital, Sydney, down from a record 239 a day earlier. Of the new cases, at least 42 spent time in the community while infectious.
While new cases fell, New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian said that the high number of infectious people in the community meant that “we are expecting to see those numbers bounce around.”
At the same news conference, New South Wales Minister of Health Brad Hazzard said that people were waiting too long to be tested after developing symptoms, and that “we are seeing more families coming in with a family member who is presenting not alive but dead.”
While some people in migrant communities might be distrustful of government, “we are here to support you and our health system is here to support you,” he added.
Since the outbreak began with an unmasked, unvaccinated airport driver last month, New South Wales has reported 13 deaths, taking the national total to 923 since the pandemic began.
The epicenter of the outbreak has crossed Sydney from the affluent beachside suburb of Bondi to the western suburbs, where local leaders said that residents felt unfairly targeted by the heightened enforcement.
“They’ve got no other ideas than to bring in the military as a last resort because they’re lost for answers on issues they created,” said Steve Christou, mayor of the Cumberland local government area, where 60 percent of its 240,000 residents were born overseas.
“They are a poor community, they are a vulnerable community, and they don’t deserve these lockdowns or these extended and harsh measures that they have now been targeted with,” he added in a telephone interview.
People living in the western suburbs must stay within 5km of home and have a virus test every three days to be allowed to do essential work outside the area.
Already police have been given sweeping new powers to close businesses breaking rules.
Military officers would not be armed and would be under police command, Fuller said.
They would also aim to work with community leaders on enforcement strategies, he said.
An emergency COVID-19 cabinet of state and federal leaders began a regular meeting yesterday, with plans to discuss exit strategies from the pandemic — widely expected to center around getting more people vaccinated.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
Two daughters of an Argentine mountaineer who died on an icy peak 40 years ago have retrieved his backpack from the spot — finding camera film inside that allowed them a glimpse of some of his final experiences. Guillermo Vieiro was 44 when he died in 1985 — as did his climbing partner — while descending Argentina’s Tupungato lava dome, one of the highest peaks in the Americas. Last year, his backpack was spotted on a slope by mountaineer Gabriela Cavallaro, who examined it and contacted Vieiro’s daughters Guadalupe, 40, and Azul, 44. Last month, the three set out with four other guides
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
RSS