The 64 cases may have been in the announcements the day before the lockdown stating that they had identified 65 confirmed cases in the Bondi cluster -    https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/news/Pages/20210625_01.aspx 

What I think you're not appreciating is that even by then, the virus and spread was beyond what they had expected. They were desperate to track and trace more cases and even wanted anyone who was in Bondi Westfields to get tested from 12 June to 18 June - "NSW Health is continuing to ask anyone who was in Westfield Bondi Junction (including the car park), particularly Fitness First, at any time between 12 June and 18 June to get tested for COVID-19." - https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/news/Pages/20210624_00.aspx

When it was known that the virus was already around since 12 June, they only closed 4 LGAs - the virus doesn't recognise jurisdiction - so they should have closed up Greater Sydney. Essentially, there was still school from 12 June to 25 June and Glady's decided to wait until the school term ended instead of just closing up at week 9 or 10. The lockdown was for 2 weeks to coincide with the school holidays and was a decision of practical convenience rather than medical advice (Chant has given medical advice which Hazard has suppressed and doesn't want to release).

You're also missing the point that an "essential" reason was deliberately not defined by the NSW Government (unlike Victoria) because they wanted to keep as many things open as possible. This is why it was a "progressive lockdown'. This is another article from News.com.au stating that the lockdowns we had up until mid-July were ineffective. They even describe it as "Stage 3". Victoria may have suffered harsher lockdown conditions, but it was never in the NSW's Government's interest or belief to implement such measures until recently. https://www.news.com.au/national/nsw-act/news/stricter-rules-coming-for-sydney-as-lockdown-mirrors-melbourne-stage-4/news-story/ed56890b6bd30c2a3cb32ae8bd5e3130

I agree that all this is hypothetical but we were sold on the snap lockdown because it had worked in the past. We went down a suppression path to flatten the curve, and we were able to actually eliminate it. Because we were successful with elimination, the expectation has changed and people want elimination again. That doesn't seem possible under Delta (QLD and SA may be an exception). 

I agree. It's a messed up situation. The main argument for an early hard lockdown is to avoid a long and protracted one with less COVID cases. Now we have the worst of it with a long and protracted lockdown and a large number of cases. Government support is clearly inadequate and I agree that the lockdowns disadvantage many and it's only going to get worse. 

Either if fine so long as you're rich. 

yep, get it hard and early.

The current strategy is unfair on the entire population who the majority of do the right thing,

We are paying the price for our politicians incompetence 

I think the majority in Vic could do the hard yards the first time and understood but support is drying up rapidly

Bingo. Come and go as you like and excemptions to travel overseas, kids get a vaccine straight away so you can jet off to Aspen 

as someone pointed out, 5 weeks ago 136 cases was a national emergency according to gladys. 

1,230 cases and all looking rosy? 

The 64 active cases was a quote when NSW were under investigation for any potential wrong doing. I cant find the quote but dont forget, NSW were 20 active cases a day before lockdown and 20 during the first 3 days. They werent above 50 until after lockdown, I know that much

To the point about snap lockdowns working in the past, as I said, specious reasoning. This is a virus with a 2 week incubation period and cant be beaten in 3, 5 or 7 days:
. SA - announced first snap lockdown after 24 cases. Didnt record any in the community after lockdown announcement
. QLD and WA went into lockdown with single cases and didnt record any outside of immediate household members
. Vic announced one and started recording up to 23 a day, twice. They have only come out of lockdown after 7 days once, vs 4 where they havent come out on time
. ACT - failed

When you look at the quote above by the WHO, how can anybody justify a week of lockdown with no cases? A real impact on people that even WA said cost "tens of millions if not hundreds" when there was no evidence of extended transmission?

Australia declared its own success with snap lockdowns. When there is actual viral activity they have failed, which is how this virus works and has always worked. A lockdown (when working) will only trend numbers downwards. You might have 20 a day and the lockdown puts this at 10 a day or keeps it at 20 a day

I also find it interesting that you are arguing a lockdown after 1 week is too late but also the only option. How can it be both?

Well it's not the only option. We should have locked down Greater Sydney properly 1 week earlier (that's why it is 1 week too late). Instead of the 4 LGAs, then Greater Sydney at Stage 3, then Stage 4 with exceptions etc.

Right but they didnt. So, go back in time, here they were 9 days after the initial case had been identified and they werent in lockdown. Did they have to resign to the fact there would be 1200 cases a day at that point? Was it all over by then? If Victoria at nearly 100 cases a day are still looking at driving numbers down, how was NSW at 20 cases fucked when they have had worse?

As mentioned, Victoria locked down 16 days after their case in May and they eliminated that, the federal government locked down after 4500 cases and several weeks. The only thing NSW did that was unconventional was wait before making a decision as the WHO advises. Work out where the cases are and target a response

Dont forget also, QLD did an LGA response only. The virus doesnt recognise jurisdiction. The borders of containment arent the same as which territory the premier is in charge of. I would have thought a 4 LGA lockdown would have been suffice

Another point is there is not much difference between lockdowns once you get to stage 3. Unless there is a specific activity you are trying to target there is no evidence that extra limits are going to make a radical impact. Any lockdown stage 3 or beyond will either trend the numbers down or lockdown simply wont work

Sorry but I dont buy it. NSW did a 4 LGA lockdown in the same way QLD did, and they very quickly extended that to all of Sydney, and all within 9 days

I think you're missing the point. When the decided to lockdown the 4 LGA's, they should have applied it to all of Sydney. There were still too many unknowns and were too complacent to believe they could get rid of it without shutting things down. Glady's even said in interviews that she would get things done without lockdowns. In the NSW Budget a week earlier, they bragged about "Gold Standard" contact tracing which would eliminate the virus. Clearly that's not the case but we have to live with Glady's arrogance and pay for those consequences. 

As I've said before, we don't know what Chant's advice was because Hazzard refuses to release it. Glady's and Hazzard have said they've listened to/consulted medical advice but also listened to commercial desires. The general belief was earlier lockdown but they wanted to keep things open and therefore overruled Chant. If the positions they took were aligned with the advice, then they should release it.

This is the other thing which you don't get. NSW does not have stages of lockdown. You speak from a Victorian context with stage 3 and stage 4 etc. NSW have never created such criteria. So when you hear "lockdown", you think stage 4 in Victoria, whereas the reality is nothing like it. You don't buy it because you aren't here. The 4 LGAs were no way sufficient given how Sydney is laid out. The Northern Beaches outbreak was more manageable because there are only 3 roads leading into the area, but the link between the Eastern and Western Suburbs is countless. When it comes to Delta, 9 days is an enormous lag. 

When the response team introduces rules they dont mail them out to people in NSW and ask them to burn them after reading it. This is a public announcement across the media which is national interest. To say you have to be in NSW to understand what a stay at home order is would be like saying only people in Sydney truly know the outcome of A League games in Sydney

A stay at home order is a stay at home order. Only 4 reasons for leaving the house. You're splitting hairs over the finer details but any stay at home order, if successful, would have a downward trend on case numbers

The specifics of how NSW citizens responded to the stay at home order ties back to my initial point which you disputed. Victoria had 50% compliance on face masks on the day they introduced the May lockdown. NSW have had a history of non compliance. So what you're reporting with the way people were acting is pretty much the reason why there are 1200 cases a day. Not because there wasnt a lockdown. Not because there wasnt a stay at home order. Not because 9 days is too late (seriously???). But because NSW people werent going to be told what to do

I didnt want to quote your whole post but the quoted bit comes back to what I was saying. Gladys (and team by the way, not one person) already had a system. They had confidence in the system and it was working. Yes NSW were recording 20 cases a day but so are ACT, Vic and NZ. This is a more contagious variant where each case is inflated by household members so "20" had a different meaning. The fact is NSW were finding every single case within 24 hours. They were on top of things but people were panicking about the daily figure because thats what the media trained them to do. "Oh my God!!! 20!!!! Nooooooooo!!!!!"

This was never going to be over in 3, 5 or 7 days. This was a 3 or 4 week outbreak that didnt change until NSW decided to bow to political pressure and try something that they have never done before

The "arrogance" is the people who thought a snap lockdown would work who are now trying to explain how one lockdown is not a lockdown, how the failed ones were bad luck, and how the successful ones (no matter how similar to NSW) is what NSW should have done (even though they did, but yeah, nah, they didnt)

This is just political shit flinging which is what the last 18 months has been. The problem with vigorously defending a broken system is a broken system is never going to get the job done

Funny how the reporting changes now that we have to start living with Covid

NSW Health switches to recording patients as dying 'with' Covid instead of 'from' after finally acknowledging many of Australia's 993 casualties died from something else or had even recovered from the virus

• NSW Health will record patients as dying 'with' instead of 'from' coronavirus
• Dr Jeremy McAnulty made admission as the state recorded 1,218 cases 
• He said it was 'difficult to know' exactly how much virus contributed to death
• In NSW, 145 people have died with the virus since the start of the pandemic

Published: 17:59 AEST, 29 August 2021 |

NSW Health has switched to recording patients as dying 'with' instead of 'from' Covid as it acknowledges not all of the country's 933 deaths were directly linked to the deadly virus. 

Dr Jeremy McAnulty made the admission during Sunday's Covid briefing as the state recorded 1,218 new cases of coronavirus. 

Dr McAnulty said the change in language was because it was 'very difficult to know' whether someone with Covid died from the virus, or another health complication.

'We know when elderly people die, they can have a range of comorbidities, and also, being old increases your risk of death,' he said.

'Covid may often play a role in the death, but it may not. Sometimes, some of our cases who have sadly died appear to have recovered from Covid, and then they have died of something [else].

'We report people who have died "with" Covid, unless there is a very clear alternative.' 

As explained by Dr McAnulty, some of the deaths previously reported as 'from Covid' were actually the consequence of another health condition or the victim had fully recovered from the virus before their death.

Earlier this month, Ady Al-Askar a forklift truck driver from Liverpool collapsed in his shower after contracting Covid-19 from his wife Yasmin who works in aged care. 

The 27-year-old was isolating with his wife in their unit in Sydney's southwest and barely showed any Covid symptoms before his untimely death. 

Paramedics who responded to the emergency reportedly confirmed that Ms Al-Askar suffered heart failure, whereas the hospital and Dr Chant specified that Covid was a contributing factor in his death.

A few weeks later, Osama Suduh from Sydney's Covid-hit south-west, became the state's youngest recorded victim of Covid-19 - though he died of meningitis. 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9937169/Coronavirus-Australia-NSW-Health-switches-recording-deaths-instead-Covid.html

One thing is for sure and as BB2 mentions Sydney's nature of non compliance.
Water under the bridge now re harder Lockdown but another point is no matter how hard a Lockdown would be imposed there's a huge % from sth Western Sydney who will always break the rules no matter what. The ongoing infections and non compliance proves it.
Incl the ignoramous religious types who think god saves them as we saw twice over the last few weeks.

A mate of mine from one of the LGA's there wearing his mask at the servo to fill up watched as some 30ish yr olds pulled up no masks and carried on to fill.
He said you could sense they are waiting for a confrontation from anyone who dared. 

First Pfizer jab booked in for September 14th (Y)

Welcome to Australia in 2021. You can either-

a) Enjoy months of being lockdown OR
b) Enjoy your basic freedoms but have tougher borders than Israel and cop a load of backlash anyway.

Qld has largely dodged a bullet so far, but could be up shit creek in the next 6-12 months if the vaccine rollout remains slow. 

Who was it here that (a week or so ago) predicted NSW cases would alternate between 800-1200 back and forth over this coming week before dropping off? So far looking pretty accurate...

If they were finding every single case within 24 hours, then we wouldn't be in this mess. Again, NSW Health were asking people for 2 weeks to get tested if they've been to Bondi Westfields during that week in June. If cases were found within 24 hours, why would you need to ask the public to get tested for a site over 2 weeks? 

I'm not saying a snap lockdown would work, but I think we would be in a better position than where we are now. Again, you're coming from the Victorian Government's approach and that doesn't translate to how the NSW Government has dealt with the issue. Even when the restrictions were announced, people were already criticising the lack of clarity and controls - just look at the articles which I posted earlier. 

I agree that it comes down to political shit flinging. Glady's didn't want to be like Dan and tried to differentiate. Now we have lost control.

COVID is probably the straw though. I think this change may have been triggered by the youngest death, where he died of meningitis. 

5 week lag in QLD compared with NSW with 80% on 8 December. Hope that isn't too bad but 5 weeks is a long time for this virus.

Lets make something clear here - the federal framework set out was a suppression approach, in the national cabinet, signed off by everybody, which NSW followed. When you're saying Gladys didnt want to follow Dan, of course she didnt. Labour went their own way on this pandemic. NSW, of all states and territories, were the only ones who followed the federal model, up until the last outbreak. To blame Gladys for not defying the federal directive shows that you have a specific political allegiance. A political COVID response makes as much sense as a political fire or flood response. Any national disaster should have a single framework regardless of which political party you belong to

The second point I'll make is Muz has been under lockdown despite no cases in over 400 days. Why? Because somebody decided regional NSW was a definitive and linked area of risk. Somebody drew a border and said "any place that is not Sydney but under the same judicial rule has an equal level of risk of infection". Garbage

Locking down areas based on jurisdiction is pointless. Melbourne, which does not fall under NSW rule, has been infected several times from NSW over the last 18 months yet nobody throws them into a precautionary lockdown when there is a case in NSW. Australia is a single landmass and despite the trivial differences in state law people will act like its a single land mass. An LGA lockdown (a distinct area of containment with essential services within) is much smarter than a judicial lockdown. As I said last year, Australia should have long ago drawn out COVID containment borders and during any outbreak nobody is allowed in or out unless essential and with daily testing

I dont buy Sydney should have been locked down at the same time

As for the 2 week lag. Thats part of contact tracing. Find a case within 24 hours, widen the net, find a case within 24 hours etc... Dont forget, most sites were turning up empty. A site somebody with COVID has visited is not an exposure site or a transmission site. Its a targeted best guess

And yes people were pointing out lack of clarity and controls in the NSW approach - criticism compared to other states. Criticism compared to other outbreaks the same people had been through. There wouldnt have been confusion if it was the same as previous responses, and any criticism for not following the labour rebel model could have easily been ignored

I guess that's the thing. We went for suppression but were able to eliminate it. Now the expectation has shifted to elimination - I mean we have mandatory hotel quarantine, that isn't really a suppression approach now is it? NSW were also able to contain the Northern Beaches outbreak last Christmas. Do we default back to lower expectations now because it is Delta? Glady's defied a federal directive last time but shouldn't this time?

As for Muz being in lockdown - yes, I'm angry with the Government for not providing a "ring of steel" around Greater Sydney and letting the virus get out to regional NSW. An LGA lockdown only makes sense depending on the LGAs involved - Northern Beaches? Yes because of its geography. Eastern Suburbs? Not really because of it's connection with the rest of Sydney.

As for the lack of clarity with guidance - I can say the approach and attitude taken this time was completely different to that of 2020. If anything, I would say it was complacency on both the Government and public and it's reliance on the system. 

While we are talking about suppression, what I'm also annoyed with the Government for seemingly putting the health system under pressure already. We're apparently at 80% ICU capacity already. What happened to all our preparations? If 137 ICU admissions puts us at 80% (I think we were at 50% capacity for non-COVID cases already), we wasted an entire year for nothing - https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/hotspot-hospitals-to-triage-covid-19-patients-in-makeshift-units-to-manage-surge-20210825-p58lum.html

When you have an elimination approach it is done with the understanding that a single case means lockdown. Zero case threshold. New Zealand have this approach. Everybody has that understanding and everybody is on board. No need for every day restrictions because you are in lockdown within 24 hours anyway (and even they dont do whole jurisdiction)

When you have an open approach it means no quarantine. The virus moves freely within the country and then you yo-yo between lockdown when the hospital systems are overrun. This is why I disputed what McJules was saying with "control" restrictions left in place because no country was able to do this. It is highly contagious and increases exponentially

Australia's suppression approach was supposed to be in between. We dont lockdown after a single case, but we dont let it into our country either. We have every day social distancing and contact tracing which means when we do get an outbreak it can quickly be managed (as we have seen before). Gladys didnt defy federal framework last time because regions that dont feel like they are in control can still lockdown. But it is progressive and last resort

This changed when the B variant (UK strain) first entered our country and it was decided to lockdown immediately when detected under the understanding it couldnt be suppressed. But not everybody was on board with that. Each state has done their own thing. Having every day restrictions, preemptive restrictions, and then going into lockdown over a single case anyway, and then having post restrictions doesnt make sense. Australia is caught between 5 or 6 different strategies and thats why there is no consistency

NSW should never have gone into lockdown. They werent overrun with the virus, contact tracers were generally within 24 hours of each case, they were on top of things. But, as I said, due to political pressure they did go into lockdown and now people are denying they did. We know now with ACT, Vic and NZ that unlike other variants seeing 20 cases in a single day is normal. But its just a "bigger" cluster instead of more cases wider spread which 20 would otherwise indicate

Australia should have stuck with its suppression approach or uniformly agreed on an elimination approach and removed all restrictions out of a lockdown. I dont agree that NSW did anything wrong and I still dont think the 9 day wait or leaving Bunnings opens accounts for 1290 cases today

Singapore the first country to reach 80% fully vaxxed, all Pfizer and Moderna: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-30/singapore-covid-80-percent-full-vaccinated/100417746

The ICU capacity issue is going to be the thing that locks us down in winter 2022.
THis article is paywalled but its analysis is that:
NSW ICU capacity can increase its ICU bed and ventilator capacity from 863 to 2015 but for this 1150 increase they only have the staff to man 164 of those beds. Other states are in the same boat - have the beds but dont have the specialised staff.
Hospitals in states with no covid are already overstretched - HOW THE FUCK CAN THIS BE THE CASE after 18 months?
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2021/08/28/exclusive-states-unable-staff-ventilator-capacity/163007280012361#hrd

Some of my predictions on speed of vaccine rollout and rate of vaccination have been too pessimistic largely thanks to a crazy effort by NSW Govt and its people.

According to this article, the trade ministers expect a travel bubble with singapore by the end of the year.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/stick-to-the-plan-no-travel-for-nsw-until-slower-states-catch-up-on-vaccination-20210828-p58mpq.html

I think they will look as easing rules on leaving the country but still have mandatory home quarantine for tourists

Honestly if it opens the bubble to singapore I'm on the first plane out of here as I dont think it would be open for long - cases will be inevitable and as ICU beds fill up the public will shit the bed and force Morrisons hand as Federal election looms. Speaking to Aussie mates who escaped to europe and they are seeing restrictions being put back in place in some countries - Greece and parts of Italy. Its only just starting autumn there but I can see lockdowns in some countries with low vaccination rates. Winter 2022 for Australia is a long way away but it wouldnt surprise me to see lockdowns in some states in Winter 2022. We can only hope not.

This is the thing which gets me. WTF were we doing for 18 months? We bought the ventilators but forgot to train staff or dedicate more personnel to it? The same issue for every state? It doesn't add up.

Great! Had my jab 2 yesterday.

When your hospital system is in crisis with zero covid, there is little wonder in why you keep focusing on elimination. The chronic neglect of the health system isnt just limited to WA and all states & feds are guilty of it. Much easier to blame Covid for overloading hospitals rather than taking responsibility for underspending in the past, particularly in the last 18M during a pandemic.

Non-urgent surgeries cut in WA as ambulance ramping hits bleak record

By Hamish Hastie

August 30, 2021 — 1.16pm

Yep I don't think there's a state in the country that doesn't have issues with ambulance ramping. Neocapitalism at it's finest.

Off for my 2nd AZ this arvo.