People wait in line at a coronavirus testing clinic at Mona Vale Hospital on 18 December in the wake of an outbreak on Sydney’s northern beaches. Photograph: Loren Elliott/Reuters
In late December, the phrases #GladysCluster, #GladysTheCovidiot and #GladysOutbreak began to trend periodically on Twitter, as some users of the social media platform began calling on the New South Wales premier to #LockNSWdown.
It was a response to a slowly growing but concerning number of cases and clusters of Covid-19 in the New South Wales community. After weeks of no reported community cases of the virus, a man from south-west Sydney tested positive on 16 December. He had been working as a van driver shuttling airline crew between Sydney airport and their accommodation.
Sunshine State is placing greater Brisbane s 2.5million residents in lockdown
Queensland only made QR check-in codes compulsory on December 23, 2020
Ten days later, a Brisbane hotel quarantine cleaner caught train to her city job
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk s state has been slow to implement QR codes
Health Minister Yvette D Ath told Daily Mail Australia QR codes not infallible
But she stressed she was proud of Queensland s response to the pandemic
The Labor cabinet minister argued contagious UK strain justified the response
Queensland unlike NSW and Victoria hasn t had to stress test its Covid response
Health detectives search for Avalon links to western Sydney mystery cases
Normal text size
Advertisement
Virus detectives are searching for the source of a concerning COVID-19 cluster in Sydney’s west as northern beaches residents wait to hear what relief from restrictions Premier Gladys Berejiklian will grant them on Saturday.
Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant said the results of genomic sequencing for three new western Sydney cases expected on Sunday will reveal whether they are linked to the Avalon cluster.
Gladys Berejiklian will likely announce a relaxation of some northern beaches restrictions on Saturday.
Credit:Sam Mooy
“At this point the western Sydney cases are not linked [to the Avalon cluster]. We’ll be interested whether that sequence matches the Avalon cluster,” Dr Chant said, though there were other possibilities, such as the patient transport worker living in western Sydney who caught the virus from the overseas returned travellers he had shuttled.
Mask mandate for Sydney more effective than lockdown now that Christmas and New Year over, expert says
ThuThursday 31
updated
FriFriday 1
A lockdown could be a last resort strategy if festive gatherings cause super-spreading.
(
Share
Print text only
Cancel
One question is increasingly on the minds of Sydneysiders as they watch the northern beaches coronavirus cluster grow: are we going back into lockdown?
Key points:
More drastic restrictions may be needed if Christmas and New Year gatherings cause COVID super-spreading, authorities have flagged
Professor Raina MacIntyre says the fallout from festive gatherings could be greater than the previous Sydney clusters
Professor MacIntyre hopes a mask mandate across Sydney will be tried before a broader lockdown