Australia Covid live news update: NSW reports 319 new cases, five deaths and Armidale lockdown; Victoria records 29 cases and Qld 13

None of new Victorian cases in quarantine for infectious period; Queensland won’t make lockdown decision until Sunday

A journalist has asked if it is realistic to assume that NSW has already seen its last ever Covid-zero days:

I still haven’t lost hope that we’ll get back to zero. Delta is a pretty wild variant of the virus. It is wreaking havoc across the world. What we need is our community to back each other in.

It is almost a level of self-entitlement to think that you don’t have to have the vaccine but your neighbours do. No, you will have to. We all do. Every one of us. If you get the vaccine and don’t follow the rules, it makes it more difficult to get back to zero but I’m still hopeful.

A reporter has asked if any of the cases are linked to the anti-lockdown protests held a fortnight ago.

Hazard has said it’s unclear:

There is no clarity on that at this stage because the difficulty is, I wish it was easy, but people who have come into be tested don’t necessarily tell us they were at the rally. As you would expect. The police would take more of an interest in that.

It is continuing to be a disappointment. I have my suspicions that we might be seeing some increases as a result of that because there were people there from south-west Sydney but there is no clarity on that. It is concerning.

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