COVID-19

It's the second highest number of daily new infections since the outbreak began on June 16, prompting Premier Gladys Berejiklian to announce sweeping changes to the stay-at-home orders affecting Greater Sydney and its surrounds.

From 11.59pm today, people who live in the local government areas (LGA) of Fairfield, Canterbury-Bankstown and Liverpool will not be allowed to leave those areas for work.

There are several other major changes being made to the lockdowns affecting Greater Sydney, the Blue Mountains, Central Coast, Wollongong and Shellharbour.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said there are now 18 cases in the state.

"We have 75 exposure sites, 1500 primary close contacts and 5000 secondary close contacts," Andrews said.

"I want to assure all Victorians that our contact tracers and public health experts, all the team are moving faster than they ever have, doing a brilliant job. I am very proud of them and grateful. As fast as they are moving, they are keeping pace with this virus, not getting in front. Unless we get in front, we won't drive these numbers down stop they will ultimately get away from us."

The island, with a population of about 1500, has now vaccinated almost 100 percent of its target group.

Stuff reports a national celebration was held on Tuesday to mark the vaccination milestone.

With Pfizer vaccines supplied by New Zealand, Niue began its vaccination programme on June 1 and vaccinated 97 per cent of the eligible population on the first round.

The second round went smoothly and achieved the same results, with vaccinations completed on July 9.

Niue's government is looking to vaccinate those aged 12-15, once it gets the go-ahead from MedSafe.

According to the Ministry of Health’s Permanent Secretary, Doctor James Fong, most of the deaths are elderly people.

Six of them are women and four men.

The oldest is a 92-year-old man who was not vaccinated and the youngest is a 42-year-old woman who was not fully vaccinated.

From the current list of deaths, eight are not vaccinated while two have received their first doses of the vaccine.

In the midst of these deaths, Fiji has recorded 634 new cases for the 24 hour period that ended at 8am yesterday.

Workers rights advocates and legal experts believe it is unconstitutional for Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama to give workers an ultimatum to get the vaccine or lose their jobs.

There are now more than 9000 active cases in isolation -and 56 deaths linked to the current outbreak that started in April.

Workers rights advocates and legal experts in Fiji have labelled the government's Covid-19 response as being "more of a fire brigade approach" and that it is not in control in the fight against the deadly virus.

American broadcaster ESPN linked Parker to the Covid outbreak in the Tyson Fury camp that has delayed the British star’s trilogy fight with Deontay Wilder.

Parker has been training with Fury in Las Vegas and told Stuff at the time of the report that he was “keeping healthy and safe” and that his family who are with him in Las Vegas were “all good too”.

Cases have increased compared to the 485 cases and three deaths in the previous 24-hour period.

The Health Ministry announced that all three patients were unvaccinated.

Ministry of Health’s Permanent Secretary, Dr James Fong said five other people who tested positive for COVID-19 had died but their deaths have been attributed to "serious pre-existing medical conditions and not COVID-19."

Fiji has 9310 active cases in isolation. There have been 58 deaths reported, 56 of them are from the latest outbreak that began in April.

Dan du Preez, Ox Nche, Bongi Mbonambi, Scarra Ntubeni and Makazole Mapimpi, plus three of the management team, have also tested positive for coronavirus.

It takes the total number of cases to more than 20 in the Springbok camp.

However, a "large group" of South Africa players will return to training on Sunday after six days of isolation.

The three-Test series against the touring Lions takes place on consecutive weekends from 24 July.

Thirty-three of the cases have been out in the community while infectious.

NSW Health confirmed a woman in her 90s from south west Sydney died yesterday at Liverpool Hospital.

It is the first COVID death in NSW since December 2020.

She was a close contact of a locally acquired case and was tested for COVID-19 on Friday, returning a positive result early yesterday morning.

Health Secretary James Fong says the 55-year-old woman from Nabua was attended to by a ministry response team at a medical facility.

The woman was transferred to the Colonial War Memorial Hospital after she reported having severe symptoms of COVID-19.

"Her condition worsened in hospital and she died two days after admission. She was not vaccinated," Dr Fong said.

He said there had been two more deaths of COVID positive patients.