New record for NSW with 919 new Covid cases, two deaths; Queensland to pause hotel quarantine from noon; ACT reports nine new cases; Victoria reports 17 of new cases in quarantine for entire infectious period. Follow all today’s news
- Gap between Indigenous Covid vaccination rates and overall population widens in almost every state
- NSW lower primary and year 11 students prioritised under return to school plan
- Mother turns to Twitter in desperate bid to get daughter with Down’s syndrome vaccinated
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4.01am BST
Now for an update on a post we brought you just before the NSW press conference.
The federal government has clarified that no soldiers who were issued with administrative notices over the Brereton inquiry have been deployed by the ADF to join the evacuation efforts from Afghanistan.
The comments made about the Brereton report were not made about specific individuals. I want to stress that – they’re not about specific individuals and even those 17 specific individuals, and we don’t want to cause any hurt to our veterans community and, and our defence community. As you say, they are there on the deck at HKIA [Hamid Karzai International Airport] in Kabul right now. We got out of over 1000 people out last night in our biggest night of operations. We’ve got almost 2500 people out now over the course of this past week, it’s probably the most dangerous place in the world right now – and Australians are right in the middle of it … and I’m very proud of what they’re doing, including those who have been the subject of some of the allegations. They’re serving … I honour them for that service.”
4.00am BST
We’re hearing more and more about hospitals in Sydney under pressure from the surge in Covid cases.
Health authorities insisted the system is coping fine for the time being, but did not directly answer questions about how the system is placed if daily case numbers continue to grow.
Continue reading…
Source: The Guardian