Australia news LIVE NSW records 633 new local COVID-19 cases three deaths cases increase in Victoria ACT first Australian repatriation flight lands in Afghanistan

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Prime Minister Scott Morrison confirmed the first Australian repatriation flight into Afghanistan landed last night.

“This was the first of what will be many flights,” he said. “[It is] enabling us to transfer also in key personnel from the departments of foreign affairs and trade, home affairs and defence to facilitate the evacuation of citizens, residents and visa holders, Afghan nationals from Kabul.”

US soldiers guard Kabul airport on Monday.Credit:AP

There were 26 people evacuated on the first flight, including Australian citizens, Afghan nationals with visas and one foreign official.

“The operation involves everything from establishing that contact with those who were in Afghanistan, particularly closer to Kabul, and to ensure that they can be in a position to be at the airport in order to be evacuated on the flights as they come into Kabul,” Mr Morrison said.

“This is not a simple process. It’s very difficult for any Australian to imagine the sense of chaos and uncertainty that is existing across this country, the breakdown in formal communications, the ability to reach people. And we are doing this directly ourselves.”

Repatriation flights will head from Kabul to a base in the United Arab Emirates, before transferring people back to Australia.

Read more here.

ACT’s chief minister said the numbers out of NSW are concerning and a potential risk to the nation’s capital.

“NSW are going to need to get this outbreak under control,” Andrew Barr said.

“We are amongst the most exposed if not the most exposed when it comes to NSW control with the outbreak.”

Mr Barr said how well containment measures work in greater Sydney, and the spread of cases around regional NSW, will have an impact on the lockdown in the ACT. The territory is currently less than one week through a planned three-week lockdown.

“We’ve put a lot of measures in place in order to not have an outbreak follow the same path as the NSW one. These measures need to work in order for us not to be in that position,” he said.

“A better understanding of the epidemiology of the outbreak and then what’s going on in the region around us, that will inform our decision making as we move through.”

Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley has defended closing playgrounds and not childcare centres, describing childcare centres as a “controlled environment”.

“They have quite strict protocols in place … both federally and at the state level,” Mr Foley said during Wednesday’s COVID update.

“I think there’s always a difference between a regulated controlled environment, and an unregulated environment.”

He said playgrounds and childcare centres were qualitatively different, and noted the Delta variant had spread previously in outdoor areas. He said a skate park, in Melbourne’s north, was declared a COVID-19 exposure site.

“We have to work on the basis of public health advice and the evidence,” Mr Foley said.

“In regards to playgrounds, I think the evidence is that we’ve got 110 young people already infectious.

“Young people and kids, in particular, hang out in playgrounds. It’s a risky transmission site.”

Victorian COVID response commander Jeroen Weimar said earlier that, of the state’s current 246 active coronavirus cases, 56 are under nine years old, and 55 are aged between 10 and 19.

Playgrounds in Melbourne were closed on Monday evening as part of tougher new lockdown restrictions.

Attention is squarely on Australia’s rescue mission in Kabul but for Australians in Indonesia there is another noteworthy flight today.

About 200 of them will board a Qantas repatriation flight organised by the Australian government which is departing Bali’s Ngurah Rai International Airport this afternoon for Darwin.

The government last month had 780 Australians registered as wanting to return home from Indonesia, which has been hard hit by the pandemic, so not everyone has got a seat.

There was priority given, however, to about 350 people classed as vulnerable.

Their passage back to Australia has been complicated by the lowering of quarantine caps, the slashing of commercial flights from Indonesia to Australia and the blocking of transit through regional hub Singapore.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison is due to address the media shortly.

Watch live below.

Just four of the ACT’s COVID cases remain under investigation, the territory’s Chief Health Officer said, with no cases in hospital.

“We are happy that 63 of those have confirmed linkages, as I’ve said before that still leaves for still under investigation. And that still includes what is the source of this outbreak,” Dr Kerryn Coleman said.

Dr Coleman said more young people were being diagnosed with the coronavirus, with three further schools notified that students were positive cases: Harrison School, UC Lake Ginninderra College, and St Thomas Aquinas Primary School. There are also now 15 cases linked to Lyneham High School.

While Dr Coleman would not say how many cases were in children, she said cases ranged in age from to 62, and the median age of people with COVID-19 in the ACT is 19.5.

ACT Education Minister Yvette Berry said all staff, families and other contacts of the three new schools have received information overnight for testing and quarantine.

“I know this is a really difficult time for many of us, as we manage work and having our kids at home, and keeping up to date with all of the fast-moving public health notices,” she said, adding there was a range of mental health services available for adults and children for those who need them.

Victorian health authorities expect to get a share of 175,000 Pfizer vaccine doses out of the one million the government purchased from Poland.

Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley said authorities expected the doses to start arriving in the state this coming weekend. Officials are yet to determine who will receive the doses, but Mr Foley said that information would be shared “as soon as possible”.

“We know that with increasing allocations coming in over the next couple of months that we want to make sure that we get jobs into the hands of everyone that’s eligible,” Mr Foley said.

“And we’re working through what that looks like for many priority groups.”

The federal government purchased the doses from Poland with supply coming from the Pfizer plant in Belgium, which was approved by the Therapeutic Goods Association.

NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro says it is “premature” to announce whether regional NSW, which was placed in a seven-day lockdown from last weekend, will have restrictions extended.

“We’ll go to the [crisis] committee and look at all the data that we have in front of us, but the number of LGAs that now have infection [and] our sewage surveillance tells us there are concerns in bigger parts of the regions,” Mr Barilaro said, citing recent detections on the Mid North Coast.

NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro. Credit:James Brickwood

“So it’s a 50-50 call. One that the crisis committee will make, but one that will absolutely be up-front with the community sooner rather than later.”

With a permit system for travel between Greater Sydney and regional NSW to come into force this weekend, despite the application system not due to be live until Friday, NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Gary Warboys was asked if there might be a grace period.

There will not be.

“The time for grace periods and the time for being in a position where people can wrangle their way out of it with some excuses are over,” Mr Warboys said, noting people should not be able to travel to regional NSW without a reasonable excuse regardless, the permit system is just designed to assist police in their investigations.

Victorian health authorities are launching a new advertising campaign encouraging locals to always see their cold symptoms as possible COVID-19.

Health Minister Martin Foley said during Wednesday’s COVID update the campaign would launch across all media platforms in the coming days.

“We say time and time again, because it’s true â€" if you have even the slightest of symptoms, or if you’ve been to an exposure site, or you’re a contact [of a COVID case], you need to come forward to get tested,” he said.

“It’s the most important thing you can do.”

The advertising campaign is called “only a test can tell” and will spread the message that if people have a cough, a fever or other symptoms, only a test will be able to tell whether it’s COVID.

“An early positive test, should you get it, means that you can take action to protect yourself and protect your family, and protect your community,” Mr Foley said.

“If you get a negative test, that’s even better.”

The ACT has recorded 22 new cases, taking the total number of cases in the territory’s current outbreak to 67.

Chief Minister Andrew Barr said there were 12,500 people in quarantine, including 10,500 people who are close contacts of known cases.

ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr has urged people to complete their essential shopping as quickly as possible during lockdown. Credit:Elesa Kurtz

“I want to hold out hope for people that we will get through this, but we need to look after each other,” he said.

“Please stay at home, but do keep in touch with family and friends online and through the telephone.”

That number of people in quarantine has put pressure on supermarket food delivery services, he acknowledged, urging people to seek options outside the main supermarket chains.

“The government has been engaging with the major supermarkets to get food deliveries prioritised for those in quarantine. However, there are many options outside of the mainstream or major supermarket chains,” Mr Barr said.

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