Australia Covid live update: Sydney lockdown to be extended as millions in Victoria and SA awake to eased restrictions

We are keeping an eye on Tokyo as well today as Aussie Ariarne Titmus preps for her second round of competition with world champion Katie Ledecky from the USA.

You can read Kieran Pender’s preview here:

Or, if you want a snappy 60-second recap (and a dramatic recreation of Kaylee McKeown’s F-bomb) you can check out my Guardian Australia Tiktok below!

Steven Marshall is asked if he has considered giving NSW some of SA’s share of Pfizer doses and his answer is a polite “heck no”:

Well, my understanding is that the federal government has been able to find 50,000 doses and, of course, the Atagi changed protocols or advice is going to allow more people of the AstraZeneca jab up there in New South Wales.

I do think we need to stick to the national framework in terms of vaccination. We don’t know where the Delta variant is going to hit next. We do have a national approach. We’re very keen to stick to it here in South Australia …

Look, as I said, the Atagi advice now is that it is better for younger people to now take that AstraZeneca. So I think it opens up a huge opportunity for New South Wales. There is no constraint on the AstraZeneca vaccine whatsoever. So I think that will be a changed situation in New South Wales.

SA premier Steven Marshall is beaming on ABC News Breakfast this morning after a seven-day lockdown appears to have effectively fought back a Delta outbreak in the state:

Look, I am very happy today, a week ago we were very concerned about what was happening here in South Australia with this Delta variant, but the people of South Australia went into a hard lockdown, they didn’t move around very much at all and we got on top of it with massive, massive testing results over the last week. Absolutely huge.

And we’re very grateful today to be out of lockdown. There is still some restrictions in place, and they’re going to be in place for some time, but the good news is students are back at school, we have got hospitality workers back, we got retail open again and we’re now gradually coming out of this very tough situation here in our state.

Federal finance minister Simon Birmingham has labelled the NSW treasurer’s calls for jobkeeper “political bickering”.

So check out this HARDBALL question from Today host Karl Stefanovic:

So why does the NSW treasurer say in News Corp papers you have to bring jobkeeper back? He is having a whinge even though they just pocketed $1.3m in stamp duty*. Is it your job to bring it back?

Simon Birmingham:

It’s our job to make sure there is effective support there for the people of Sydney. We are not interested in any political bickering and we are delivering that effective support.

Dan Andrews has likened the disaster assistance payments to being like jobkeeper. So indeed we are providing a payment that is now accessible to all casuals. It’s hitting more households and individuals in NSW and giving them that financial support and we’ve been having the discussions as a federal cabinet knowing that this decision was likely to be necessary from the NSW government as to how we can make sure we continue to deliver that effective assistance right across Sydney.

I mention NSW treasurer Dominic Perrottet’s opinion piece mostly because the federal finance minister Simon Birmingham has just been asked about it on ABC News Breakfast.

Here is his response to those repeated calls for jobkeeper to be reinstated:

The prime minister and the treasurer had lengthy discussions last night with premier Berejiklian and Mr Perrottet. And the prime minister’s maintained discussions with premier Berejiklian right through this crisis as he usually does with premiers in these circumstances.

We have, over recent days in particular, been looking at what else may be necessary as a result of the decisions we expect New South Wales would have to make. The PM will have more to say on that later today. They’re the types of things he was outlining to the New South Wales government last night.

In case anyone was wondering if NSW treasurer Dominic Perrottet was still desperately keen for the federal government to reinstate jobkeeper for lockdown greater Sydney, he has made his views abundantly clear in an opinion piece in the Daily Telegraph today.

The piece lays out all the ways the federal government disaster payments fall short when compared with jobkeeper. Here’s a snippet of what he had to say:

The Disaster Payment excludes people who are receiving other forms of Commonwealth assistance. It shouldn’t …

In fact almost 200,000 people in NSW fall into that category, including 77,300 JobSeeker recipients, almost 34,000 people on Youth Allowance, and more than 4,000 Austudy and ABSTUDY recipients.

Many of these are young people who can’t yet get the vaccine, can’t work, can’t get on with their studies, and now they’re being told the income they have lost won’t be topped up like everyone else’s. This is truly the generation at risk of becoming the new forgotten people.

Speaking of NSW, the state’s opposition leader Chris Minns is out and about this morning and is … well, surprisingly supportive of the premier, given the news we are expecting today.

Minns was asked on ABC News Breakfast if he thought Berejiklian should have locked down harder and faster:

Well, I mean, self-evidently this will be the sixth or seventh change to restrictions since in the last four weeks when the initial outbreak was recorded. So I think even the chief health officer and the premier herself would say that the original measures didn’t work.

But, look, I mean there would be plenty of time to work out the chronology, what happened in the intervening weeks, the circumstances that led to the initial lockdown. Right now, we just want this to work. I mean, we’re all praying for the government is success, because people are hurting in New South Wales and in Sydney and everyone I speak to is just desperate for this to be over.

Good morning, everyone, it’s hump day – but don’t worry, we can get through it together.

It’s Matilda Boseley here and let’s start the day off with an update on NSW.

At 11am it’s expected NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian will announce a four-week extension to the greater Sydney lockdown.

Guardian Australia understands Berejiklian will not be introducing curfews but the government is exploring rapid antigen testing for year 12 students to allow them to return to school before their HSC exams. Other years will be expected to remain at home for their schooling over the additional four-week period. These rapid tests may also be used at essential workplaces such as supermarkets.

Single bubbles, which would allow those who live alone to visit one other person in the same circumstances, is also likely to be introduced for this next phase of the lockdown.

As Berejiklian had previously indicated, some construction will be permitted to resume from Saturday, provided sites have approved Covid-safe plans.

That will set a new end date of 28 August – nine weeks after the city first entered the severe restrictions.

In better news, people in Victoria and South Australia are waking up out of lockdown, although heavy restrictions remain in place.

In Victoria it remains illegal to have guests over to your home, and restaurants and cafes can reopen but only for seated service, with strict density caps.

OK, my friends, let’s not delay any further and jump straight into the day.

If there’s something you reckon I’ve missed or think should be in the blog but isn’t, shoot me a message on Twitter @MatildaBoseley or email me at [email protected].