A young man has been ordered to pay $10,000 after allegedly skipping self-isolation then going clubbing in Newcastle before testing positive to COVID-19.
NSW Police say the 20-year-old was directed to self-isolate at a Newcastle property from last Wednesday because he was a close contact of a positive case.
Instead, they say, he attended a licensed premises on Wharf Road that night, and went to another person’s house on Saturday.
A Wednesday night party at the Argyle House nightclub on Wharf Road has now seen more than 200 people acquire the virus.
Newcastle is the epicentre of the Omicron-fuelled outbreak in NSW, with the Hunter responsible for 633 of the record-high 1742 new cases in NSW in the 24 hours to 8pm on Wednesday.
That is 209 more cases in Newcastle than the previous day, with NSW Health saying the majority are the highly-transmissible Omicron variant.
The cluster has been driven by super-spreading events at pubs and clubs.
Health authorities want the Newcastle community to seriously consider postponing social events until after Christmas to keep family gatherings safe.
An alert was issued on Wednesday night for another Newcastle pub.
Anyone who was at the Cambridge Hotel on Hunter Street between 6.30pm on Friday and 2.30am on Saturday must get tested and isolate for seven days.
All household contacts of close contacts should also be tested and self-isolate until a negative result is received.
The government on Thursday extended the vaccine mandate for health care workers, bringing it into line with Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia.
All health practitioners – including doctors, nurses, speech pathologists and naturopaths, and support staff – working in public and private settings must be double-dosed by January 31.
The mandate previously applied only in public and private hospitals.
It comes after Health minister Brad Hazzard on Wednesday revealed modelling on the Omicron strain predicted cases could soar to 25,000 a day by the end of next month.
The number of cases reported on Thursday is a jump of 382 from the previous day’s tally. The state has now recorded 122 cases of the Omicron variant.
The previous highest daily tally in NSW was recorded on September 11 when there were 1599 local cases, or 1603 if infections contracted overseas are included.
The record number of new cases were diagnosed from 143,938 tests in the 24 hours until 8pm on Wednesday.
There were no deaths recorded, whereas during the previous height of the pandemic there were a record 15 fatalities on September 29 and October 1.
Authorities are hoping the high vaccination rates – 93.3 per cent of adults are fully jabbed – will keep the stress on the health system to a minimum.
Researchers from UNSW’s Kirby Institute have concluded two vaccine doses have little to no effect on the transmissibility of the Omicron variant but protection against severe disease – particularly with a booster shot – remains.
There are 192 people in hospital (up from 166), 26 of them in ICU (up two).
Brett Holmes, the general secretary of the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association, said if the 25,000 cases a day scenario eventuated “then we are in a dire position in terms of what the staff could sustain”.
“I don’t think that there’s any health worker in NSW who doesn’t have a chill going down their spine about seeing that massive jump in the numbers,” he told ABC TV.
He urged people to continue wearing masks, saying “it’s not difficult compared to being isolated for 14 days or worse – being sick for an extended period of time”.
AAP
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