The rules dividing states and territories are likely to remain in the short term. But as time goes on and vaccination rates increase, many may stop trying to reach COVID-zero too.
The next months are going to remain difficult. But I’m still hopeful about the future. There will come a point when enough people are vaccinated that case numbers begin to decrease.
The second wave of COVID-19 in New South Wales highlights concerns for the unvaccinated and those with multiple risk factors - particularly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
NSW needs to mandate masks outdoors, provide adequate financial support, set up a ‘ring of steel’, use rapid tests for essential workers, and ensure cases not in full isolation get to zero, among others.
In order to support people effectively, craft appropriate messages and predict virus spread, it is crucial to use the languages and local networks that bind multicultural communities together.
Regional NSW, home to a third of the state’s population, is still waiting for the promise of faster train travel to be delivered. Other states improved their regional services years ago.
Recent commentary has suggested transport, age, jobs, migrant population and other factors among the reasons that may help explain the difference. What does the data say?
NSW is developing a comprehensive new planning policy with the goal of creating healthy places. A new study finds those people who work as placemakers want these goals embedded in laws and budgets.
The risk of COVID escaping from hotel quarantine or a health-care setting will never be zero. But in NSW and Queensland, was everything possible done to minimise the risk?
While Chief Scientist Alan Finkel’s review of contact tracing only briefly mentions digital methods, it’s crucial Australia invests in an automated system.
News of the NSW premier’s ‘close personal relationship’ with a former MP under investigation by ICAC is a hit to her hitherto squeaky clean public persona.