How Sydney s northern beaches COVID-19 outbreak in Avalon unfolded
By Jonathan Hair
FriFriday 22
Annie Hawke came into close contact with a positive case at Avalon RSL.
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Annie Hawke doesn t like to be called the matriarch of Avalon Beach, but she is one of its oldest residents.
The 91-year-old former teacher is happy to be called the area s mother having lived in the suburb on Sydney s northern beaches for more than half a century.
Over that time, from the wooden deck of her tree-encircled home, she has seen the area change from a little hippy village to the affluent suburb it is now.
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New South Wales has recorded nine new Covid-19 cases - including a child - after almost 40,000 people were tested for the virus on Christmas Day.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian said eight of the nine new infections reported on Saturday were linked to the Avalon cluster on Sydney s Northern Beaches. The ninth infection could be a false positive, she said.
Six of the eight cases on the Northern Beaches were in the same household and the other two had been identified as close contacts after the virus was previously transmitted in Paddington and at the Avalon Bowling Club. There are still concerns about the CBD and still concerns about people in the Northern Beaches who may unintentionally have spread the virus without knowing they have it, she said.
Australia has various advantages as an island continent. It is monumental and only accessible in the most impractical ways. It is discouragingly far and almost impossible to invade without a huge investment of personnel and material. The decision to place convicts on the island by the British was audaciously cruel and illogical, setting a precedent for future decisions by Australian governments to send undesirables to distant, inaccessible outposts, at cost.
But distance has not spared the country from the COVID-19 pandemic. Assisted by human error and misjudgement, quarantine defences were breached as they will no doubt continue to be. In Victoria, it proved most costly, leading to community transmission in a deadly second wave with a single-day peak of 725 cases in August. In the largest state in the country, New South Wales, pride was taken at developing a contact tracing system to deal with arrivals from outside Australia. Withering judgment, notably by the Morrison federal gove
Opinion – Binoy Kampmark Australia has various advantages as an island continent. It is monumental and only accessible in the most impractical ways. It is discouragingly far and almost impossible to invade without a huge investment of personnel and material. The decision to place …
Australia has various advantages as an island continent. It is monumental and only accessible in the most impractical ways. It is discouragingly far and almost impossible to invade without a huge investment of personnel and material. The decision to place convicts on the island by the British was audaciously cruel and illogical, setting a precedent for future decisions by Australian governments to send undesirables to distant, inaccessible outposts, at cost.
Wednesday, 23 December 2020, 6:23 pm
Australia has various advantages as an island continent.
It is monumental and only accessible in the most impractical
ways. It is discouragingly far and almost impossible to
invade without a huge investment of personnel and material.
The decision to place convicts on the island by the British
was audaciously cruel and illogical, setting a precedent for
future decisions by Australian governments to send
undesirables to distant, inaccessible outposts, at
cost.
But distance has not spared the country from the
COVID-19 pandemic. Assisted by human error and misjudgement,
quarantine defences were breached as they will no doubt
continue to be. In Victoria, it proved most costly, leading