Orders! Orders! Orders! (Stay at Home ‘Orders’) – Mick Raven

Byron Bay, Richmond Valley, Ballina, Lismore go into lockdown after COVID-19 case in region

9th August 2021

Four local government areas (LGAs) in the NSW North Coast will go into lockdown after a positive case travelled to the region from Sydney.

The Byron Shire, Richmond Valley, Lismore and Ballina Shire LGAs will lock down from 6:00pm today, until 12:01am on August 17.

The same rules will apply in lockdown, to the current restrictions in Greater Sydney, Hunter region and parts of the New England region.

In a statement, NSW Health said the region’s lockdown came after updated health advice from chief health officer Kerry Chant.

The statement said the stay-at-home orders were to “protect the people of NSW from the evolving COVID-19 outbreak”.

“We understand this is a difficult time for the community and appreciate their ongoing patience and cooperation,” the statement said.

“We are asking people not to seek exceptions to the rules, but to ensure they comply with them so we do not see further cases of COVID-19 in the community.”

Premeditated? Targeting the Anti-Vaxxers in Byron Bay? – Mick Raven

Race to find source of COVID fragments in Byron Bay wastewater

23rd July 2021

NSW health has flagged the discovery of COVID-19 fragments in Byron Bay’s wastewater in northern New South Wales as a concern because no cases have been reported in the area.

Director of the North Coast Public Health Unit Paul Corbin said the focus was on trying to find the source of the virus.

The sewage treatment plant serves about 19,000 people in Byron Bay, Wategos, Suffolk Park, Sunrise, and Broken Head.

Mr Corbin said the virus fragments were detected in a sample collected on Tuesday as part of the ongoing sewage surveillance program.

“Sewage surveillance is just one of our surveillance mechanisms used to detect COVID but the most important one is people getting tested because that’s a direct test that leads to an infected individual,” Mr Corbin said.

Additional testing facilities were being set up in Byron Bay today.

“We’ll also be poring over our records [of] anyone we may think is a close contact of a case to see if we can understand this result,” Mr Corbin said.

He said there would be additional sewage testing.