Daily COVID-19 Update 8 October 2021: NSW and Victoria

New South Wales recorded 646 new cases of community transmission, meanwhile Victoria recorded 1838 new locally acquired cases. Source: Getty Images

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The latest news on the current Delta strain outbreak affecting regional NSW and Victoria's Indigenous communities.

A new form of the Delta strain has been identified in NSW, with 8 known cases
The NSW/VIC border bubble has been reintroduced for several regional LGAs

NSW

New South Wales recorded 646 new cases of community transmission to 8pm last night, and 11 deaths.

Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant revealed that a new strain of COVID related to the Delta strain has been identified in New South Wales.

Chant said in regards to transmission, vaccine effectiveness and disease severity that there’s no indication that there’s any difference between it and the Delta strain currently circulating in Sydney. There’s been 8 cases of the new strain identified so far, 7 of which are from the same household.

The Western NSW Local Health District had 16 new cases — 6 in Dubbo, 5 in Bathurst, 2 in Wellington, 1 in Oberon and 1 in Orange.

The Far West Local Health District had 5 new cases, all of which were in Dareton.

Victoria

In Victoria there were 1838 new locally acquired cases to midnight last night, and a further 5 deaths. This brings the total number of active cases in the state to 16,823.

Regional Victoria had 113 new cases, including 18 in Geelong, 13 in Shepparton, 11 in Baw Baw, 10 in Ballarat, 7 in Moorabool and 7 in Mildura.

Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton announced that several LGAs would be having the border bubble arrangement with NSW reintroduced. On the Victorian side, these are the Benalla, Bendigo, Buloke, Lodden and Yarriambiack LGAs, and on the NSW side are the Edward River, Hay, Lockhart, Murrumbidgee and Wagga Wagga LGAs.

People living within those local government areas can travel freely between them without a permit, provided you’ve not left that bubble within the last 14 days.

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.