Australia Covid live news update: NSW confirms record 390 cases and two deaths; ACT reports two new cases, Victoria 15, Qld seven

More charges have been laid against Sydney residents accused of travelling to regional NSW in breach of Covid health restrictions, AAP reports

Charges have been laid against two Covid-positive women, aged 20 and 21, for travelling from Sydney to the Hunter without a reasonable excuse.

The pair was charged with breaching NSW’s public health orders by travelling to the Newcastle area around two weeks ago.

Police allege the women were directed to return to Sydney but failed to leave the area. Both women have since tested positive to Covid-19.

The 20-year-old is due to face Mount Druitt Local Court on September 29, while the 21-year-old will appear at Hornsby Local Court on the same day.

Five new cases were on Friday reported in the Hunter New England area.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese has written to the prime minister, Scott Morrison, to call for ADF personnel to use their logistics capabilities to set up vaccine hubs in Western Sydney.

The WA government has now upgraded its “high risk” category for Covid hotspots, and introduced a new “extreme risk category”.

In addition to 14 days of self-quarantine and testing for high risk, people flying from a high risk area will also need to show proof of a negative PCR test in the 72 hours prior to departure, and proof of receipt of at least one Covid-19 vaccine where eligible.

Under the extreme category, the only exceptions to quarantine will be commonwealth, state and specialist functions.

The trigger for high risk categories will be an average of 50 new community cases per day, and the trigger point for extreme risk will be an average of 500 new community cases per day.

The rules for NSW will be adjusted so that people who recently left WA, have roots in WA and a legitimate right to return, will be able to return subject to the quarantine restrictions and required evidence.

WA premier Mark McGowan said:

The Covid-19 Delta variant is wreaking havoc in New South Wales and I extend WA’s sympathies to everyone as they battle to bring various outbreaks under control.

The health advice is clear in that the Delta strain is significantly more contagious than previous strains of Covid-19 and there is emerging evidence that it leads to more severe outcomes.

We only have to look to NSW to see the devastation that this strain can cause in people and to the economy.

More from the ACT press conference on the first case that sparked the week-long lockdown.

We are looking to hear from people from across Australia on how Covid has affected them with millions in lockdown on the east coast of Australia and thousands of active cases at the moment.

You can provide your story and details in the link below.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott has done what far too many people in lockdown have done before him – started a podcast. My colleague Paul Karp has listened to the first episode.

Ahead of national cabinet this afternoon, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Business Council of Australia have released a joint statement saying that for the majority of workplaces, the vaccine should continue to be voluntary, but recognising that it may be required in high-risk workplaces:

Unions and business are committed to working cooperatively with governments to keep workplaces safe and to achieve the highest possible rates of vaccination though building confidence in the vaccination program and supporting workers to get vaccinated.

The ACTU and the BCA acknowledge that the federal government’s Covid-19 vaccination policy is that it should be free and voluntary. We believe that for the overwhelming majority of Australians your work or workplace should not fundamentally alter the voluntary nature of vaccination.

Employers and unions recognise that for a small number of high-risk workplaces there may be a need for all workers in a workplace to be vaccinated to protect community health and safety. These are serious decisions that should not be left to individual employers and should only be made following public health advice based on risk and medical evidence.

The ACTU and the BCA call on governments and the national cabinet to support this position and ensure that where mandatory vaccination requirements are necessary they are implemented through the use of nationally consistent public health orders.

And with that, I will hand over the blog to the excellent Josh Taylor who will take you through the afternoon’s news. Thank you for reading, and please stay safe wherever you are.

Barr is back on the podium and has confirmed that Covid-zero is the goal for the capital, saying it is achievable:

We want to see no additional community transmission. We want to go back to zero – that is the objective through this process. We want all new identified cases to have been in quarantine for the entire infectious period.

That is consistent with the best practice that we have seen in other jurisdictions. It is achievable, it has been done in Queensland and in Victoria. We believe that is an appropriate response for the ACT.

Stephen-Smith has been speaking about the challenges facing the testing network in the ACT, saying some of the staff at testing sites had stayed back until close to midnight last night, and that all states struggle with stepping up testing capacity at the onset of an outbreak:

I want to apologise to those people who were sent home from the epic testing site yesterday evening. We did think when we closed the gates that the team would be able to get through everybody who was already on site yesterday evening.

But it became apparent that that was not going to be possible. The team did work through until about midnight, the last swab was taken just before midnight last night and the team worked well beyond that to close down the site.

So I do want to remind people that our team out there doing the testing are human and there is not an infinite number of them. And at short notice it is hard to get a whole enormous surge workforce in but we will continue to increase testing capacity today. I want to thank the team very much for the work that was done yesterday to set up the Brindabella testing site ahead of what we had scheduled.

A student at Gold Creek School has tested positive today, so will be included in the ACT case numbers tomorrow, with health minister Rachel Stephen-Smith saying authorities have not identified any links to the case.

We have not identified links for this case at this point in time so no known travel history or identified link to exposure cases.

While interviewing is progressing with the school student, what I can tell you at this stage is the student was infectious and looks to have been at school from Monday the ninth to Wednesday the 11th of August. We have been planning for this.

We are communicating very closely with the school community so we will be treating all staff, students and visitors who were at the Gold Creek School from Monday the ninth to Wednesday the 11th as close contacts.

Barr is urging people to stay at home and for people to avoid congregating at shopping centres, where supermarkets will remain open during the lockdown.

He also referred to a “bubble buddy” system, where if you live alone, you can identify one other person you can see. Otherwise, it’s all about staying at home.

Stay at home. Do the right thing by yourself, your family and this community. Together we will be able to get through this if everyone does the right thing.

Barr has acknowledged the long waiting times at testing sites throughout the state, and has asked people who have been contacted by ACT Health as close or casual contacts to come forward as a priority for testing:

We will be expanding testing capacity, hours of operations and the number of people that each existing testing centre can manage in a day, but yesterday was our record number of tests. We expect today will be even busier and we have additional testing capacity.

So please, if you do not have symptoms and you are not an identified close contact, you do not need to be tested today. Please, stay at home. There will be an opportunity to be tested in the days ahead but the priority right now is to test those people whom ACT Health have contacted.

This is important so that we can identify the close contacts, whether they are positive or negative, and get further information to our contact traces around potential additional exposure sites.

The capital has recorded two new cases today, with chief minister Andrew Barr saying there were more than 2,000 tests conducted yesterday.

The NSW presser is wrapping up, but the final topic of discussion is how exactly tightening of restrictions will help police in enforcing health orders.

NSW police deputy commissioner Mick Willing told reporters, without giving any specifics, that officers welcome any new powers.

What is frustrating for us is the small minority that are breaching those orders. We’ll be alleging that in both of the circumstances this morning the people involved knew exactly what they were doing.

They knew they were breaching the health orders. What we need is 100% compliance across the board with community members, not 90% or 95%, but 100% of people complying with public borders.

At the end of the day any additional measures that would help us enforce the health orders will be welcome. Police are frustrated at the moment with a small minority that are out there breaching the health orders.