Thread by @iMusing

aaand into the thousands we gallop. Berejiklian is raving about vax rates.

https://twitter.com/nswhealth/status/1430696874248335360

regional lockdown for all of NSW extended for another 10 days to midnight Friday 10 September. She rolls straight on her “treats”.

vaccinated adults in heavy lockdown LGAs can have one hour of recreation outdoors. Lighter lockdown LGAs can have outdoor gatherings of up to 5 people. No time limit specified.

no mention of daily transmissions topping the thousand mark. She is talking about technology that bundles check in with vax status which is sure to work out well.

still speculating about vax rates. Western Sydney people are basically vax stats to leverage for her freedom comms at this point.

another doctor is here today to talk about pressure on the hospital system. Berejiklian throws a bone. None of us can imagine how difficult it is, says Berejiklian. The doctor is right there.

and off she goes. The exponentially increasing numbers of infections and hospitalisations are left to Chant.

the reported deaths are three in western Sydney, two died at home. Chant repeats her message about presenting early for care “although our systems are under stress”. Someone should tell the health minister.

regional NSW update. Barilaro opens with condolences and the regional lockdown extension. Western NSW “remains an area of concern”. He apologises to areas with low numbers of cases but not to areas left with low dose deliveries.

Hunter New England have no new cases “and those people have followed the rules” says Barilaro, a shocking insult to west and far west communities.

he is now praising high dose communities. My god.

Dr Skinner reassures us there is still access to emergency and asks us to help with flattening the curve by distancing and vaccinating. Nothing new there. The rotating roster of health professionals repeating Liberal Party #CovidComms has not flattened the curve so far.

chief psychiatrist is next. His job is to talk about understanding risk. Differential risk between insecurely employed low income essential workers in large households and well paid secure workers in large houses is not mentioned.

the chief psyche wraps by reading out the Lifeline number, as good an indicator of how neoliberalism trashed the public sphere as any.

people are so tired and frustrated with the restrictions, says Chant. It is critical that people in south western Sydney are afforded the opportunity to get the vaccine, she says.

https://twitter.com/abcnews/status/1430671165194792964

they are leveraging mental health to “incentivise vaccination”. Reports on the ground are that incentivising is not the problem.

what gave you the confidence to be able to tick off on these changes from September 13?
Chant repeats that households in the heavily policed LGAs can spend an hour at the park if all the adults are vaccinated.

how will police police the vax status of households at the park? Fucking hell.

there was no infringement numbers report today. I wonder if they are keeping pace with case numbers.

she is saying the same thing she has said for two months and claiming this approach of hers is about getting the cases down. Which is not happening. Quickly defaults back to “delta is infectious” and thanking health workers.

poor old Hazzard is trying to walk back his blasé nonsense from yesterday. He has gone from unconcerned about hospital capacity to “the system is under obviously under enormous pressure” in the space of 24 hours.

Berejiklian is asked if she was going to announce more freedoms but for the case numbers now being over a thousand. She says the wish of her government is to live with this virus and she wants everyone to come with her on this journey.

and with yet another statement of her commitment to make lots of people sick, I am done.