Urgent Covid alert for Sydney after infected shopper visits a string of venues including Myer and Big W - as Queensland holds its breath over potential UK mutant strain 'superspreader' and anti-maskers defy the rules
NSW Health has issued an urgent coronavirus alert for new venues in Sydney as a nationwide quarantine overhaul battles to contain the new mutant infectious strains.
The NSW alert is for venues in Sydney's southwest, mostly in Campsie, with locations also in Casula and Bankstown.
Anyone who visited the venues is considered a casual contact, NSW Health said on Saturday.
The warning comes as Queenslanders continue to hold their breath over the potential of the UK mutant strain wreaking havoc in the state as health authorities scramble to stem the spread.
Greater Brisbane entered its first full day of lockdown on Saturday with police cracking down on anyone attempting to flout restrictions.
Footage emerged showing a middle-aged man being arrested for allegedly refusing to wear a mask.
NSW Health has issued an urgent coronavirus alert for new venues in Sydney as a nationwide quarantine overhaul begins to contain the new mutant infectious strain (Pictured: People are seen wearing masks in Sydney)
Customers are seen wearing face masks at Westfield Bondi Junction after they became mandatory in Sydney
Sydney is still trying to get on top of its Covid clusters which have emerged across the city.
NSW Health urged people to get tested if they visited venues in Sydney's southwest where a positive case also attended.
Those who were at Casula Costco on Saturday, 2 January (4.45pm to 6.15pm) and Bankstown Myer on the ground floor on Wednesday, 6 January (11.30am to 12.40pm) are at risk.
At Campsie the following locations are affected: Big W, Sunday 3 January (1.20pm to 1.40pm), Chemist Warehouse, Friday, 8 January (12pm to 12.30pm) and Campsie Medical and Dental, also on Friday 8 January (10.40am to 11.30am).
People are advised to get tested immediately and then self-isolate until receiving a negative result. If symptoms appear, get tested again.
NSW Health advised that the Burwood venues announced on Friday have been removed from the list after experts determined the person was not infectious when they visited.
There were 86 separate health alerts for NSW venues listed on the NSW Health website on Saturday night along with 27 for public transport routes.
Two new alerts were issued for Glen Street, Belrose, with both an Aldi and a Woolworths affected on Thursday 24 December - the day before Christmas, from 12pm to 1pm.
A series of 418 bus routes have also been added from Hurlstone Park Station, Duntroon Street, to Marrickville Road from 30 December through to 7 January, according to the latest alert. The train from Hurlstone Park to Marrickville, Campsie and Bankstown is also affected.
To double check all the current places and times of concern, the public is urged to read the lists of latest covid notifications at the NSW Health website.
Campsie Big W: the public is warned to isolate and get tested if you were there on Sunday 3 January from 1.20pm – 1.40pm
Coronavirus testing at Merrylands in Sydney's southwest, a region of the city where a number of affected venues are located
Chemist Warehouse also in Campsie in Sydney's southwest. Get tested and isolate if you were here on Friday, 8 January from 12pm to 12.30pm
Coronavirus fragments have also so far been found in sewage at eleven pumping stations including Northmead, Quakers Hill, Ulladulla, Wollongong, Camellia North and South, Warriewood, Liverpool, Glenfield, Hornsby Heights and Brooklyn.
NSW Health said it knows there are people with coronavirus living in the Warriewood, Northmead, Quakers Hill and Camellia catchment areas.
The Department is asking everyone in those area to be vigilant in monitoring for symptoms, to isolate and get tested immediately if any appear.
In the Ulladulla area, there have been no recent known cases, meaning there may be undetected infections in the community or someone with the virus has visited the area.
Myer Bankstown in Sydney's southwest: get tested if you were on the ground floor on Wednesday, 6 January from 11.30am to 12.40pm
Health workers testing for coronavirus at Merrylands in southwest Sydney on Thursday
NEW VENUE ALERTS FOR NSW
There were 86 separate health alerts for NSW venues on the NSW Health website and 27 for public transport routes on Saturday night.
The public is urged to check the website here to see if you were at any of those places at the red-flagged dates and times.
If you were, you may have come in contact with the virus: isolate and test.
NEW SYDNEY VENUES EXPOSED
Campsie: Big W, Sunday 3 January 1.20pm – 1.40pm
Campsie: Chemist Warehouse, Friday, 8 January 12pm – 12.30pm
Campsie: Campsie Medical and Dental, Friday 8 January 10.40am – 11.30am
Casula: Costco, Saturday, 2 January 4.45pm-6.15pm
Bankstown: Myer, ground floor, Wednesday, 6 January 11.30am – 12.40pm
The health department is asking everyone in the south coast catchment area to be vigilant in looking for symptoms including in Narrawallee, Milton, Mollymook, Ulladulla, Burrill Lake and Lake Tabourie.
NSW Health only recorded one new case in the 24 hours to 8pm Friday bringing the total number of active cases in the state to 110.
Both Queensland and Victoria recorded zero locally-acquired cases of the virus on Saturday however the main concern is containing the new mutant super-strains that are increasingly being brought back by returning travellers.
Mutant super-strain numbers increasing
Australia is on edge as the new highly infectious coronavirus variants threaten to wreak havoc across the country.
Quarantine rules are being overhauled nationwide as increasing numbers of mutant cases arrive with returning travellers.
The Northern Territory has officially recorded its first case of the UK variant of coronavirus after a woman who flew in from London returned a positive reading.
Campsie Medical and Dental in Sydney's southwest is on alert for those who were there on Friday 8 January from 10.40am to 11.30am: get tested and isolate
Casula Costco is subject to a new alert for Saturday, 2 January from 4.45pm to 6.15pm
The woman, 26, arrived in the Top End on a repatriation flight on December 30. Her positive test was confirmed on January 2.
The woman is now in isolation at the NT Centre for National Resilience in Howard Springs, south-east of Darwin.
NEW RETURNING TRAVELLER CAPS
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has reduced the number of returning travellers allowed in response to the more infectious UK and South African variants. The maximum allowed are:
NSW: 1505 travellers a week
Western Australia: 512 travellers a week
Queensland: 500 travellers a week
Victoria: no change
South Australia: no change (currently 490)
NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said all staff in quarantine hotels would now be tested daily and flight numbers would be reduced.
National Cabinet has moved to limit international arrivals for the next month and Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced new rules including that masks must be worn at all times inside Australian airports and on domestic flights.
International air crews must be tested in Australia every seven days, and will have to stay in their own separate quarantine.
On Saturday, NSW Health said a person who had been released from quarantine and visited venues in Sydney's Burwood on January 6 and 7 had been infected with the mutant UK super-strain.
They were returned to quarantine when found to have low levels of infection and an alert was issued for the venues.
NSW Health retracted the alert on Saturday after experts said the person was not infectious when they went shopping.
The South African mutant strain was found in quarantined travellers in Sydney, and the equally infectious UK mutant strain is threatening to break out of Queensland.
Anxiety grew in Queensland on Saturday as it was revealed a returned traveller on a Jetstar flight from Melbourne flew to Brisbane with the UK strain of the virus on January 5.
The woman had been released from hotel quarantine in Melbourne after just 10 days despite arriving from the UK on Boxing Day.
She arrived in Brisbane on January 5 on Jetstar flight JQ570 at 11pm and then travelled to Maleny on the Sunshine Coast where her parents live.
Residents of the small town are now on high alert and have been urged to get tested.
The empty streets of Brisbane's CBD on Saturday during the snap lockdown. A cleaner with the UK mutant coronavirus has been roaming Brisbane for days without knowing
A terrifying map shows the Brisbane locations which have been exposed to the UK's mutant variant of the virus since January 2, including a busy train line, a Coles and a Woolworths
She also visited a Queensland Woolworths, bottle shop and pizza cafe while infectious.
She visited Cappriccios Italian Pizza Restaurant on January 6 between 6.30pm and 7pm, Purple Palate Cellars between 4.15pm and 4.25pm on January 7 and Maleny Woolworths on January 7 between 4.30pm and 4.50pm.
Queensland Health has urged anyone who was at the venues when the woman was there to get tested and self-isolate until they receive a negative result.
Once arriving back in Brisbane the woman tested positive to covid-19 - prompting the protocols for hotel quarantine to change, nationally.
Those in hotel quarantine now have to carry out the full 14-day stay under new protocols announced on Friday, and each person will be tested before leaving.
Contact tracing is being carried out for passengers who were near the woman on the Jetstar flight.
The woman lives with her parents at Maleny, in the Sunshine Coast region 90kms from Brisbane's CBD, and authorities have urged anyone in the area to get tested
Protocols for those in hotel quarantine have since been changed after the woman tested positive upon her arrival in Brisbane (pictured passengers at Melbourne Airport)
Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley on Saturday defended the decision to allow her to leave.
Western Australia's Premier Mark McGowan shut the border to Queensland as of Midnight on Saturday night because of the risk posed by the mutant strain.
'This is a dangerous situation, not only for Brisbane, but for the whole of Australia,' he said.
New South Wales has so far refused to shut its border to Queensland but has put in place a new Public Health Order forcing anyone entering from the Greater Brisbane area to stay at home.
Under the new rules, put in place on Friday, anyone entering NSW from Greater Brisbane must go directly to their home or place of accommodation and stay there until 6pm on Monday, 11 January.
A family of four that flew in to New South Wales from South Africa have tested positive for the highly infectious coronavirus super-strain, putting health authorities on edge.
On Thursday night, NSW Health detected the South African variant in PCR samples from the family, who are in hotel quarantine.
The discovery has alarmed NSW Health authorities, as the South African strain has independently mutated the exact same genomic variant as the United Kingdom super-strain - making both strains nearly 50 per cent more transmissible than the original virus.
A woman who had been infected by the highly contagious UK strain of coronavirus was allowed to fly from Victoria to Brisbane despite testing positive ten days earlier (pictured people at Melbourne Airport after landing from Brisbane)
Analysis of by Imperial College London researchers confirmed the new strains may be nearly 50 percent more transmissible, based on samples taken from nearly 86,000 Britons.
NSW Health has taken extra precautions to move all 16 passengers who shared the family's flight from South Africa to Sydney to Special Health Accommodation, where all coronavirus travellers are quarantined.
In both the UK and South Africa, the mutated strains are becoming the norm, displacing the original virus as they are highly adapted to spreading.
There is no evidence the disease is any more harmful than the original virus, only that it spreads faster and easier.
Medical teacher Dr John Campbell who combats coronavirus myths on his YouTube channel explained that the two different variants had developed the exact same genomic mutation but separately - just as both bats and birds had both evolved wings, but separately.
The new mutation makes the South African and UK variants equally hyper-infectious, due to identical changes in their spike protein casing he said in an update on December 20.
Brisbane arrests, protest foiled on Saturday as lockdown enforced
Brisbane residents were on the first full day of a snap lockdown on Saturday after the highly contagious UK strain of the virus broke out of hotel quarantine, infecting a hotel cleaner who roamed around Brisbane for days before testing positive on Wednesday.
The lockdown applies to council areas of Brisbane, Logan, Ipswich, Moreton, and Redlands.
Residents are required to stay at home until 6pm on Monday and only go out for work if they can't do so at home, for essential shopping or to provide healthcare for a vulnerable person in their local neighbourhood.
A bare-faced man who turned up to protest in Brisbane's Botanical Gardens was arrested and fined $1300 after first refusing a mask and then refusing a direction to go home (video above)
Those living within the specified council areas will have to wear a mask when out in public, although children under the age of 12 are exempt.
Police officers have been armed with 40,000 masks to help people comply with the compulsory public mask mandate, punishable by a $200 fine for non-compliance.
Even though legislation enabling police to fine people $200 for not wearing a mask has not yet passed parliament and is not yet enforceable, police can instead issue a direction to go home.
Refusal to comply with that direction carries a far larger $1300 fine for breaching a direction of the Chief Health Officer.
As of Saturday morning, Queensland Police had handed out four lockdown fines, three of which over people refusing to wear a mask.
Arrests were made on Day One of the new rules.
A bare-faced man in Brisbane's Queen Street Mall refused a free face mask from police, then resisted arrest and was taken away in a van to be charged with contravening a police directive, 9News Queensland reported.
An anti-vaxxer protest advertised by Aussie Patriots Roll, on Facebook, did not eventuate at Brisbane's Botanic Gardens at noon on Saturday as swarms of police foiled about a dozen protesters.
One man was filmed being arrested after refusing a facemask from police and refusing to go home.
'We're the ones that pay your bills for you,' he told police, who have been tasked with enforcing the new rules, before they handcuffed and arrested him.
'Take your hands off me,' he screamed as the officers told him to stop resisting and not to be silly.
He could then be seen being hauled into the back of a van.
The man has since been issued a $1,300 infringement notice.
Mutant super strain is crippling the UK
The hyper-infectious UK super-strain is ripping through Britain wreaking havoc on its health system, showing just what Australian authorities are trying to avoid.
Another 1,325 Covid deaths were reported on Friday – nearly one a minute - and more than the peak of 1,224 in the first wave last April.
The grisly death toll - which has doubled in a week - takes the UK to the brink of almost 80,000 victims.
Experts fear the daily death counts will continue to spiral because of rocketing cases and hospitalisations, piling further pressure on Boris Johnson to speed up the sluggish vaccination programme designed to start getting Britain out of lockdown by mid-February.
Department of Health figures show the UK has recorded more than 50,000 cases for 11 days in a row, with the five worst days of the pandemic all occurring since the start of 2021. Cases have risen by almost 30 per cent week-on-week.
But a senior SAGE official today warned the actual number of Britons currently getting infected every day is closer to 150,000, claiming that the size of the second wave is now way worse than the first.
WHAT BRISBANE RESIDENTS CAN AND CAN'T DO DURING THE THREE-DAY LOCKDOWN
Residents can only go outside for one of four essential reasons - for work if they can't do so from home, to do essential shopping or to provide healthcare for a vulnerable person in their local neighbourhood.
Only two guests are allowed inside the home.
Masks must be worn when out in public although children under the age of 12 are exempt.
Funerals are limited to only 20 people and weddings to 10 people.
Queenslanders in other parts of the state should stay at home for the next three days if they have been in Greater Brisbane since January 2
Brisbane residents will have to wear a mask when out in public as part of a strict three-day lockdown imposed by the Queensland government. People arrive to get COVID-19 tested at the Parklands Christian College in Logan in Brisbane.