COVID-19 update: Authorities call for higher testing and vaccination rates

This is your update on the Coronavirus in Australia for 17 August 2021.

Australian Defence Force personnel assist people as they check into the Qudos Bank Arena NSW Health COVID-19 Vaccination Centre in Sydney Source: AAP Image/Bianca De March

The majority of new cases in NSW are people under 40
VIC Premier calls for higher testing rates
Seventeen new locally acquired cases in ACT
No new cases in NT

New South Wales

NSW has recorded 452 new locally acquired cases, with at least 50 in the community while infectious. Seventy-five per cent of new cases are people under 40. A woman in her late 70s who was not vaccinated died.

Residents of Lennox Head are urged to get tested as COVID fragments were detected in wastewater testing at the local facility.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian issues a special call-out for people over 70 to get vaccinated.

Book here your

vaccination appointment

Victoria

Victoria has recorded 24 new locally acquired cases, out of which three are not linked to known outbreaks. Ten cases were in the community while infectious.

Premier Daniel Andrews calls for increase testing, particularly in the St Kilda area suburbs, including Port Phillip and Bayside.

Find here the

list of testing sites

and the

list of vaccination centres

Last 24 hours around Australia

The ACT records 17 new locally acquired cases bringing the total number of active cases in Canberra to 45. There are now close to 100
exposure sites in the ACT
.
Northern Territory records zero new locally acquired cases out of 1,846 tests conducted yesterday.
Queensland records one locally acquired case detected in home quarantine.

Source: ALC

Quarantine, travel, testing clinics and pandemic disaster payment

Quarantine and testing requirements are managed and enforced by state and territory governments:

NSW

and

VIC

and

ACT

and

and

QLD

and

and

TAS

and

and

If you want to travel overseas, you may be able to apply online for an exemption.

Click here

for more information about the conditions to leave Australia. There are temporary measures for international flights that are regularly reviewed by the government and updated on the

Smart Traveller

website.