![]() ![]() The mine, owned by Newmont Corp, was put into lockdown.Swift lockdowns and strict social distancing rules have helped Australia to keep its COVID-19 numbers relatively low at around 260,000 total cases and 2,154 deaths. On Saturday, the case of a worker at the Granites gold mine in the Tanami Desert of the Northern Territory prompted the territory's authorities to order the isolation of more than 1,600 people in three states who had had contact with the worker. The rest of the state will have limits on public gatherings and masks will be obligatory indoors. Under the rules in place through to July 9, people can leave home for essential work, medical care, education or shopping. Saturday's lockdown in New South Wales will also include the regions of Blue Mountains, Central Coast and Wollongong, which surround Sydney. ![]() These have been contained through speedy contact tracing, isolation of thousands of people at a time or snap hard lockdowns. New Zealand has recorded just 26 Covid-19 deaths in a population of 5 million, and Australia has had fewer than 1,000 deaths in a population of 25 million.Īustralia has been more successful in managing the pandemic than many other advanced economies managed the pandemic through swift border closures, social-distancing rules and high compliance, reporting just over 30,400 cases and 910 Covid-19 deaths from the virus.īut the country has struggled with its vaccination rollout, and states have been plagued in recent months by small outbreaks. New Zealand has previously paused the bubble arrangement five times with individual states in Australia, but this is the first time it has put a blanket halt to quarantine-free travel from the entire country.īoth countries have been among the world's most successful in containing Covid-19. He added that the suspension of the trans-Tasman travel bubble would give officials time to consider measures "to make the bubble safer, such as pre-departure testing for all flights" between the two countries. "Given the high level of transmissibility of what appears to be the Delta variant, and the fact that there are now multiple community clusters (in Australia), it is the right thing to do to keep Covid-19 out of New Zealand," said New Zealand's Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins. Neighbouring New Zealand announced a three-day suspension of its quarantine-free travel arrangement with Australia on Saturday, with Wellington citing "multiple" outbreaks of Covid-19 in the larger country. Her conservative state government was reluctant to impose the lockdown, but a growing number of health experts called for it, as Australia remains largely unvaccinated.Īustralia-New Zealand travel bubble bursts "There was no point doing it for three days or five days because it wouldn't have done the job," Berejiklian told a news briefing. "Even though we don't want to impose burdens unless we absolutely have to, unfortunately this is a situation where we have to," said New South Wales state Premier Gladys Berejiklian. More than a million people in downtown Sydney and the eastern suburbs of Australia's biggest city were already under lockdown due to the outbreak, but health authorities said they needed to expand the curbs after more infections were recorded, with exposure sites increasing beyond the initial areas of concern. ![]()
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