NSW Premier Gladys Berjeklian welcomes the move by NT chief minister Michael Gunner to effect changes to his jurisdiction’s declaration of greater Sydney as a hotspot, following new advice from his chief medical officer.
She said she is open to federal intervention in reopening state borders, but she "can't see the likelihood of that happening in the short-term". She said she begrudged the decision by Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to keep borders shut.
She confirmed the the good news that Year 12 students across the state will be able to celebrate the end of their schooling with formals and graduations despite the global pandemic.
"I want to confirm every school community across the state will be able to have a formal, will be able to have a Year 12 graduation ceremony." Ms Berejiklian said.
She added graduations may not look the same as previous years, but "you will have something to look forward to".
In NSW 10 new cases of COVID-19 were recorded overnight, with four linked to known clusters. Two new cases were linked to the Eastern Suburbs Legion Club, taking that cluster to five. A cluster linked to Sydney's Concord and Liverpool Hospitals which has now resulted to 12 cases after five more people connected to the outbreak.
The Chief Minister of NT, Mr Gunner said to effect changes to his jurisdiction’s declaration of greater Sydney as a hotspots based on the following reasons:
"First, there is now a sustained downward trend of new cases in Sydney over time, including seven straight days of 10 or fewer new cases. Second, the contact tracing and containment system in NSW is superb. They are catching and containing the virus very quickly.
It is not spreading.
Third, the level of testing being done, and the links of almost all new cases to known clusters, gives a high degree of confidence that there are no known outbreaks occurring.
For these reasons, the Northern Territory will plan to remove the hot spot status declaration for greater Sydney in 28 days’ time.
From Friday, 9 October, arrivals from greater Sydney will not need to undertake 14 are days of supervised quarantine. We are deliberately waiting another four weeks – two full replication cycles – so we can keep seeing the trend go down."
The Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, stated that Aussies wanting to travel interstate this Christmas have reason to be hopeful as most states agree to develop a "hotspot plan." Earlier however, he called the Queensland premier to ask her to personally intervene on Canberra Sarah Caisip’s appeal to attend her father Bernard’s funeral but Queensland Premier Palaszczuk refused and referred the case to Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young.
Queensland Premier has hit back at the Prime Minister, accusing him of "bullying" her to intervene in the case.
In the meantime, Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews reported 43 new cases and 9 deaths, seven of which are from aged care. He said that curfew is working, confirms a different Christmas ahead and appealed for people to come forward for testing if they feel any symptoms.