Australia Covid live update: SA braces for more cases; Sydney outbreak moves west

Commonwealth treasurer Josh Frydenberg has been asked on ABC News Breakfast how long Australia can go with more than half of its population in lockdown before the country may be plunged into a second recession.

Well, we don’t know what we don’t know – is the obvious response to that.

And this pandemic has always been full of surprises and difficulties. And right now with more than 13 million of fellow Australians in lockdown, these are very trying times. Businesses are closed, kids are being homeschooled, and, of course, families are apart. And it’s gonna have a hit on the economy.

We’ll see that in the future jobs data as well as in the GDP growth numbers. But our expectation is that these lockdowns are costing around $300 million a day, which is a very high price. And, of course, we’re not out of it just yet.

And over to Kieran Pender for big sports news from last night:

‘The Olympics will return to Australia for a third time with Brisbane formally awarded hosting rights for the 2032 Games after a vote of International Olympic Committee member nations in Tokyo.

Wednesday’s decision was a foregone conclusion given Brisbane was the only bid city still in the running and it was firmly endorsed by the IOC.

Celebratory fireworks lit up Brisbane’s night sky as the Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, and the Australian delegation – who had travelled to Tokyo to make their case in person – signed contracts and took photos in Japan.

Here is personally my least favourite tweet in reaction to this announcement:

After you recover from that, you can read the full report below:

Federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg has just told Sunrise that he expects Australia’s September quarter to be in the red, which is somewhat unsurprising given that more than half of the country’s population is in lockdown:

We were probably expecting that the September quarter is a negative – let’s wait and see what happens in the weeks ahead. To have your two biggest states, New South Wales and Victoria, in lockdown is a big blow.

Treasury estimates that having these three states with South Australia in lockdown, is costing around $300m a day. Again, that is going to play out in many ways, but that’s why our economic support is there.

If you look at the economic performance, with respect to this whole recession that we faced, we bounced back quickly. Faster, stronger than either the reserve bank or Treasury had been expecting, so I’m confident that if we can get on top of the virus we will see a strong bounce-back in the economy.

According to the ABC, Victoria can expect a slightly higher number than yesterday’s 22 new local Covid-19 cases.

That number was already the highest the state had recorded in 10 months but there is hope that the majority of these new infections will be from close contacts who were already in isolation.

Hello everyone and welcome to Thursday.

It’s Matilda Boseley here. Why don’t we start today’s news coverage in South Australia, where a Covid-19 cluster of six grew to 12 yesterday afternoon.

Five of the latest cases are linked to the Tenafeate Creek winery at Yattalunga, north of Adelaide, with the sixth, a child under five, linked to a Greek restaurant in the city, where a number of infected people dined at the weekend.

After one of the cases – a man in his 40s – attended the winery, he went to a school campus in the town of Gawler on Monday, raising concerns for other staff and students.

The state’s chief health officer, Nicola Spurrier, said both the winery and the restaurant were now considered super-spreader sites.

In NSW health officials are worried that Sydney’s cluster is on the move again, leaking into vulnerable communities in the city’s west.

The lion’s share (50) of yesterday’s 110 cases still came from the south-west, but health authorities said they are particularly concerned about the 29 newly infected people in the western Sydney local health district.

NSW Health’s Jeremy McAnulty warned residents:

We’ve seen this focus of cases initially in south-east Sydney, then south-west Sydney and we’re now seeing cases in western Sydney increase …

People should be particularly vigilant and don’t hesitate to come forward for testing at the slightest symptom.

Oh, and also Brisbane won the 2032 Olympics or something, but we will get to that later. Let’s jump into the day!

If there is something you reckon I’ve missed or think should be in the blog but isn’t, shoot me a message on Twitter @MatildaBoseley.