It’s a busy day with COVID-19 news around Australia again and The Greek Herald has all the latest on the three locked down states of News South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.

Victoria:

Victoria’s lockdown will lift at midnight, ending the stay-at-home orders and allowing students to return to classrooms and dining in hospitality venues.

But Premier Daniel Andrews said visits between households would remain barred for another two weeks, as authorities managed thousands of close contacts still in quarantine.

Masks remain compulsory in both indoor and outdoor settings outside the home, unless an exemption applies. The restrictions apply statewide, meaning there is no longer any restriction on travel within Victoria.

Public gatherings are capped at 10 people, while workers in the office is capped at 25 per cent or 10 people if the workplace is 40 or fewer people.

Density limits of one person per 4 square metre apply to workplaces, community facilities, sports centres, creative studios, hospitality venues, hairdressers and beauty services.

Victoria has recorded 10 new locally acquired cases of COVID-19, all of which were in quarantine throughout their infectious period.

The cases were detected from 24,340 test results processed on Monday.

New South Wales:

New South Wales recorded 172 new locally acquired COVID-19 cases in the 24 hours to 8pm yesterday.

Sixty of those cases are known to have been in the community while infectious.

A further 19 cases were in isolation for only part of their infectious period and the isolation status of another 32 cases are under investigation.  

Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the main focus of concern had shifted to Western Sydney.

“We are now seeing the virus becoming more prevalent in Western Sydney than south-west Sydney,” she said. 

The Premier said she was hoping to announce whether the lockdown affecting Greater Sydney and its surrounds would be extended past July 31 “as early as tomorrow.”

Late last night, NSW Health also released a long list of new exposure sites, including Greek owned, Fardoulis Sweets & Nuts in Kogarah.

Anyone who attended the venue on Wednesday, July 21 at 12pm – 5.45pm, Thursday, July 22 at 12pm – 5.45pm and Friday, July 23 at 12pm – 5.45pm is a casual contact who must immediately get tested and isolate until a negative result is received.

South Australia:

South Australia has recorded no new local COVID-19 cases today as the state’s COVID-19 lockdown is set to end at midnight tonight.

“I’m absolutely delighted to announce no new cases since yesterday’s update, and that’s a huge relief,” Premier Steven Marshall said at a press conference today.

High school students and teachers in South Australian schools will be required to wear masks when they return to classrooms.

Police Commissioner Grant Stevens said the new requirement would not apply to primary school students, but would be enforced in high schools unless it interfered with the education process.

“SA Health are working directly with [the Department for] Education on that so we can get the mix right, so kids can still learn but they can do so safely, and teachers can be as safe as possible too in the same circumstances,” he said.

Department for Education chief executive, Rick Persse, clarified that students in year 8 and above — when high school starts in South Australia — would have to wear masks while indoors.

Mr Stevens also announced this morning that sport training would be allowed but not competition, following a meeting yesterday afternoon.

The Government has released for public consultation an exposure draft of the Migration Amendment (Protecting Migrant Workers) Bill 2021 that proposes new criminal offences and civil penalties to further protect migrant workers from exploitation. 

Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs, Alex Hawke, said the proposed Bill sends a strong message from the Australian Government that wage underpayment and other exploitative practices against migrant workers are unacceptable and will not be tolerated.

“This legislation is timely as we work on economic recovery from COVID-19. We want to ensure Australia maintains a strong reputation as a destination of choice for working holidaymakers, students and skilled migrants,” Mr Hawke said.

Building on initiatives previously implemented in response to recommendations from the Migrant Workers’ Taskforce, the Bill proposes a number of new offences designed to prevent an employer from using migration laws to coerce migrant workers.

It will be an offence to coerce or exert undue influence or pressure on migrant workers to accept work arrangements that breach work-related visa conditions. It will also be an offence for a person to coerce, influence or pressure migrant workers to accept work arrangements to satisfy a work-related visa requirement, or to avoid an adverse effect on their immigration status.

The Bill will also introduce other important measures to enhance protections for migrant workers under the Migration Act 1958, including:

• prohibiting certain employers who have breached specified provisions in theMigration Act or the Fair Work Act 2009 from employing additional non-citizen employees for a specified period;
• establishing new compliance tools for the Australian Border Force to work with employers, labour hire companies and other parties to improve compliance with Migration Act requirements relating to employing migrant workers;
• requiring the use of the Visa Entitlement Verification Online (VEVO) system to ensure employers, labour hire companies and others involved in referring non-citizens for work are conducting appropriate checks of prospective employees’ immigration status and work-related visa conditions; and
• increasing civil penalties for breaches of work-related provisions in the Migration Act.

“We know the majority of Australian businesses and employers do the right thing but there are still a small number of unscrupulous employers who find ways to exploit migrants,” Mr Hawke said.

In addition to the measures proposed in the Bill, the Government has also made regulatory changes to enhance the safety and welfare of working holiday makers in Australia, and discourage them from working for employers with a track record of misconduct.

The Migration Amendment (Subclass 417 and 462 Visas) Regulations 2021 will exclude work for specified businesses counting towards eligibility for a second or third working holiday maker visa.

Considerations for listing a specified business in the legislative instrument would include, for example, any relevant convictions, in particular those relating to safety and welfare of employees.

The exclusion would only apply to work undertaken by working holiday makers after the business is listed in the legislative instrument.

The Department of Home Affairs will implement enhanced communication channels to allow visa holders to easily check the status of their employer.

A specified business will be provided a right of reply, before listing them in a legislative instrument.

Consultation on the exposure draft of the Migration Amendment (Protecting Migrant Workers) Bill 2021 will close on Friday, 16 August 2021. For further information on making a submission visit the Department of Home Affairs website.

Pharmacists were overwhelmed by the amount of interest on their first day of delivering the AstraZeneca vaccine in western Sydney, the Australian Financial Review (AFR) reports.

About 70 to 90 pharmacies in Fairfield, Liverpool and Canterbury-Bankstown started administering the vaccine this week as the NSW government hopes their community connection will overcome vaccine hesitancy and lead the way out of lockdown.

Alex Papadimitriou of Harper’s Pharmacy in Earlwood, within the heavily restricted Canterbury-Bankstown area, told the AFR he had already requested more vaccines than the 300 a fortnight he was allocated based on the strength of Monday’s bookings.

READ MORE: Reverend Father George Liangas from Burwood features in NSW Health’s COVID campaign.

“We thought we’d have more resistance to AstraZeneca but a lot of people have realised it’s safe,” Mr Papadimitriou told the AFR.

“We definitely feel – talking among pharmacists and our staff – that there has been a turnaround.”

The pharmacy had booked 35 vaccinations for Monday with little advertising, and most of the appointments were for people in their 40s and 60s.

READ MORE: Dr James Giallussi helps convey COVID-19 messages to Sydney’s Greek community.

But Mr Papadimitriou said he received the biggest inquiries from younger people, to whom pharmacies are prevented from administering the vaccine.

“The worst part has been we’ve turned away, over the last two days, more than 20 people who are under 40,” Mr Papadimitriou told AFR.

“I’m pleasantly surprised that most of them would be happy to go ahead but we had to refer them on to the GP so I hope the government does change that.”

Source: The Australian Financial Review.

READ MORE: Dr Voutos and Dr Keramianakis join ‘culturally inclusive’ medical health centre in Bankstown.

A new survey conducted on social media by former Sydney schoolgirl, Chanel Contos, 23, has revealed students are being taught inconsistent lessons on sex, consent and respectful relationships, The Daily Telegraph reports.

According to the Telegraph, some Sydney schoolgirls claimed to have been told tampons will take their virginity, while more than half of respondents – 56 per cent – claimed they were taught how to escape sexual assault by pretending they needed to remove a tampon.

Other young women say they were not taught about contraception because it contradicted religious dogma demand­ing abstinence.

Since last year, consent must be taught to all students in Personal Development, Health and Physical Education (PDHPE) classes until Year 10, but the syllabus is not explicit about how teachers deliver the lessons.

Ms Contos told the Telegraph more needs to be done to ensure the lessons are clearer for students.

“It is one thing to have a reformed curriculum but how that information is actually delivered to students is just as important,” Ms Contos told the media outlet.

“We can’t measure this sort of thing based on the satisfaction of teachers or the amount they access teaching materials, but instead by periodically auditing sexuality education and measuring both the understanding of the students and the changes in rates of sexual violence in our community.”

All three school sectors – public, private and Catholic – signed a statement of intent four months ago pledging to take “concrete action” to ­improve consent education. The education sectors have since ruled out a thorough ­review of what is currently taught to students.

Head of The Association of Independent Schools NSW (AISNSW), Dr Geoff Newcombe AM, said such an audit would lumber schools with too much responsibility, and more schools are set to roll out how-to guides informing parents how to teach their children about sexual consent.

“There will be a range of material suitable for students from Kindergarten to Year 12 as well as information on reporting channels for incidents of sexual harm, assault and sexual violence,” Dr Newcombe told the Telegraph.

According to the media outlet, the Federal Government will also send out how-to-guides for parents, but will first conduct surveys of all public school PC groups to find out what parents know about sexual consent and what advice they want included in how-to guides for teaching teens about consent.

Pending COVID-19 restrictions, the surveys are planned to go out to parents in Week 7. The government has also begun webinars to explain to parents of public school children what is being taught in schools about consent and ­respectful relationships.

Source: The Daily Telegraph.