Covid: Government confirms new law for all businesses

THIS morning Premier Gladys Berejiklian confirmed there would be law at 70 percent vaccination requiring all businesses to be vaccinated and most retail and hospitality venues will not be able to accept customers who are unvaccinated.

“…it will be the law, you can’t attend those venues on our roadmap,” said Premier Berejiklian.

The Premier also said they were considering the nature of penalties for breaching that law, but added “…we appreciate many small businesses are hanging on by a thread.”

Dr Chant said it wasn’t the time to wait for a vaccine of choice.

“Can I just say the AstraZeneca vaccine is actually holding up very well, it’s a vaccine I’ve had, it’s a vaccine the Premier has had, my mother-in-law had, my son had, my husband had,” said Dr Chant. 

“…at the moment the key message is we are very privileged to have very effective vaccines and we’re not an appropriate phase where we should be picking and choosing, we should be taking the opportunity to get vaccinated with whatever effective vaccine we’ve got available,” she said.

The Premier added, “in a pandemic we don’t always have choices and what we know is we have two vaccines that are holding up extremely well…whoever isn’t vaccinated when we open up is vulnerable.”

The Premier said they haven’t decided on what restrictions would be in place at 80 percent state average vaccinations, but also said government was considering how future restrictions may be more flexible.

“In parts of regional and rural New South Wales it’s much easier to isolate communities…because there is a distinction between townships…it’s much more difficult in urban areas and that’s why we look forward to getting the health advice,” said Premier Gladys Berejiklian. 

The state has now reached 80% first vaccination and 47.5% double vaccination.

Cases in the past 24 hours:

• 1,261 new cases of covid-19 identified
• 1,241 people are hospitalised
• 234 people are in intensive care
• 108 people are being ventilated
• 12 people have died
  • 1 woman in her 30s
  • 2 people in their 50s
  • 3 people in their 60s
  • 3 people in their 70s
  • 2 people in their 80s
  • 1 person in their 90s
  • 10 of the people who passed away were unvaccinated, 1 had received one dose and the man in his 90s had received both doses.

Hunter New England Health District cases:

• 8 Lake Macquarie
• 7 Maitland
• 7 Newcastle
• 3 Cessnock
• 2 Port Stephens

Regional Local Health District cases:

• 47 Illawarra Shoalhaven
• 27 Hunter New England
• 11 Central Coast
• 10 Far West
• 7 Southern NSW
• 6 Western NSW 
• 2 Murrumbidgee
• 10 are in correctional settings and
• 16 cases are yet to be assigned to an LHD.