NSW recorded 345 new locally acquired COVID-19 cases in the 24 hours to 8:00pm yesterday. Two men in their 90s with COVID have died. One of them had been fully vaccinated, the other had one jab.

The Sydney local government areas (LGAs) of Bayside, Burwood and Strathfield will be subjected to extra COVID-19 lockdown restrictions from 5:00pm today.

There are now 12 LGAs of concern in Sydney.

People in these LGAs must only obtain food or other goods and services, and exercise, within 5 kilometres of their home.

They cannot travel to other areas for work unless they are an authorised worker.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian said Fairfield and Canterbury- Bankstown were still generating the most cases but seem to be stabilising.

She said the new areas of concern have been added based on health advice.

“In relation to Bayside, the suburbs of particular concern are Bexley, Banksia and Rockdale where additional cases have been identified overnight so if you live in though suburbs in particular, please come forward and get tested,” the Premier said.

“But also of course in Strathfield and Burwood, which are geographically smaller areas but we are noticing relative to the population an increasing number of cases and as a precaution, those additional council areas have been brought into those areas of concern.”

There were a record 151,830 tests completed in the reporting period.

ACT to enter lockdown for seven days:

The ACT will go into lockdown for seven days from 5pm today, after the territory recorded a positive case of COVID-19.

A statement from the Chief Minister’s office said the confirmed case had tested positive to the virus and had been infectious in the community.

But the statement said the source of the infection was unknown and have not yet said where the confirmed case had travelled in the community.

The government said the new case represented the “most serious public health risk” the ACT had faced for 12 months.

It had previously been 105 days since the last case in the ACT —a diplomat in quarantine — and over a year since the last locally acquired case.

It will be the first time the ACT has entered a lockdown of this nature since the early days of the pandemic.

Under the lockdown, Canberrans will be told not to leave their homes for the next seven days except for essential reasons, which include essential employment, healthcare, shopping for groceries or supplies and up to one hour of outdoor exercise.

Canberrans will also be expected to wear masks when in public once again.

General retail stores will close and hospitality venues will be restricted to takeaway only.

Former Dow Chemicals chief executive, Andrew Liveris, has something to celebrate after the Biden administration passed its historic $US1.2 trillion ($1.64 trillion) infrastructure bill by the US Senate.

“It is a tremendous bipartisan achievement which augurs well for American leadership on the big decisions for this century, especially of the digital and green kind which is vital for the growth of the US economy,” Liveris told The Australian.

Despite living in Australia for the past 18 months, Liveris has spent the past few months leading a business ­coalition working to help the passage of the bill, focusing on key US senators, The Australian reports.

Working the phones from Sydney, Liveris has been co-­chairing Build Together, a group of US business leaders aimed at getting bipartisan support for infrastructure across the US, lobbying and working with US senators to get the Biden bill passed.

The group includes the chief executives of some of America’s largest companies including General Motors (Mary Barra), Delta Airlines (Ed Bastian), Nike (John Donahoe), Duke Energy (Lynn Good), Raytheon Technologies (Greg Hayes), IBM (Arvind Krishna), Walmart (Doug McMillon), Bank of America (Brian Moynihan) and Procter & Gamble (David Taylor).

“We went to work in the background, pretty quietly, working with the senators… We knew we had to get at least 10 Republicans to make sure it could pass the Senate,” Liveris said.

In the end, 19 Republican senators this week supported the bill along with all Democrats, a rare exercise in bipartisanship backing Biden’s infrastructure plans.

Liveris told The Australian one of the big “tripping points” of the bill was Biden’s initial insistence that the infrastructure proposals were packaged together in a much broader group of social initiatives which includes improvement in funding of childcare, welfare payments and greater access for minorities.

“If you put all that into the bill, it is a $US3-$US4 trillion spend,” he said.

He said one of the arguments of the Build Together coalition to the Biden administration was that the “soft infrastructure” side of the bill – the social changes – should be separated from the “hard infrastructure” to allow it to get more bipartisan support.

“We were trying to keep it as a bipartisan effort, scoping it around real need for rail and public transport and roads and bridges, ports and airports, water and electric power infrastructure, and broadband and charging stations,” he told The Australian.

“Keeping to that scope was ­really one of our biggest contributions. We were more or less a sounding board to say (to the Biden administration), ‘You are not going to get the bigger thing through if you keep bolting on things that end up being very good for US citizens, but if it means the business community gets laden with higher taxes and new costs, it will stop investing. You will end up having the negative effect of having all this social infrastructure and payments, but your revenues will go down as the American business community will stop investing.’

“Keeping it pro-investment and scoping it appropriately was one of the big accomplishments.”

The bill will see billions of dollars invested in upgrading America’s ageing infrastructure, in­cluding roads, rail, and bridges.

It also includes funding for a national network of electric vehicle charging stations, the expansion of high-speed internet access to rural areas and the replacement of all the country’s lead pipes as part of an investment in clean drinking water.

Full Story: The Australian.

The Greek Australian Dialogue Series continues next week with a zoom conference with the executive director and board member of Enterprise Greece, Betty Alexandropoulou.

Hosted by the trade commissioner of Greece in Australia at the Consul General of Greece in Sydney, Katia Gkikiza, and director of the Business Leaders Council, Paul Nicolaou, the session will include topics such as how have Greek exports changed during the COVID pandemic and how Enterprise Greece has helped companies sustain, grow, transform, and develop.

Ms. Alexandropoulou comes with vast experience in senior leadership roles within government as well as private-sector multinational organizations, and several years abroad in countries such as Switzerland, Argentina, and the United States.  

Formerly a Senior Commercial Advisor for the U.S. Department of Commerce at the U.S. Embassy in Greece, her portfolio included Healthcare and ICT sectors and the SelectUSA global program which facilitates U.S. foreign direct investment. A seasoned professional in managing global projects and teams, she specializes in international market expansion as related to trade promotion and investment attraction, as well as business transformation. 

She has served in business associations such as the Propeller Club and the American Chamber of Commerce and has participated in various conferences and industry forums as a keynote and panel speaker.

Following her presentation, there will be an opportunity for a Q&A session with Ms. Alexandropoulou.

DETAILS FOR THE VIDEO CONFERENCE:

Date:    Monday, 23 August 2021

Time:   3:30 PM – 4:30 PM (AEST – NSW, ACT, Vic, Tas, Qld)

Link:    Zoom link will be forwarded to you after you RSVP

To RSVP, please email paul.nicolaou@australianchamber.com.au as soon as possible to secure your place in this video conference.

Nola Karapanagiotidis has become the first Greek Australian woman to be appointed as a judge of the County Court of Victoria. 

Her Honour Judge Nola Karapanagiotidis is one of six new appointments to the court which start today.  

“I’m excited to welcome six new, distinguished and deserving people as judges of the County Court, who bring with them a range of experience and expertise,” Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes says. 

“Having such a variety of skills on the bench is an important part of our work to make justice more fair and accessible to Victorians.”

Nola Karapanagiotidis has been a barrister for close to two decades, practicing across the Magistrates’, County and Supreme Courts and appearing in the Federal and High Courts and coronial inquests. 

She previously worked at Victoria Legal Aid and as a solicitor advocate and has held a range of community-based and volunteer legal positions. 

Founder of the Asylum Seekers Reserve Centre (ASRC) and brother Kon Karapanagiotidis is sentimental over the announcement. 

“My late father, Leo, dreamed of being a lawyer & my mum, Sia, [a] maths teacher. Dad had to leave school at age 9 & my mum at age 12,” Mr. Karapanagiotidis writes on his Facebook page. 

“They came as migrants, no English, worked on farms and in factories until their bodies could take no more.” 

“Today my sister, Nola, was appointed a County Court judge.” 

“Somehow you found within you the strength to raise Nola and I so that we could dream that we could touch the sky and be anything,” Mr. Karapanagiotidis further pens in a missive to his late parents.

The other candidates appointed are Stewart Bayles, Kellie Blair, Daniel Holding, and Angela Ellis. 

Details of any welcome ceremonies will be made available on vicbar.com.au when they are known. 

Source: County Court of Victoria, Kon Karapanagiotidis

Melburnians will spend another week in lockdown, Premier Daniel Andrews has confirmed at Victoria’s press conference on Wednesday.

Victoria has recorded 20 new locally acquired COVID-19 cases out of 41,571 test results processed on Tuesday.

Of the new cases, 15 are linked to current outbreaks and 14 have been in quarantine throughout their infectious periods.

The current lockdown was due to end at 8:00pm on Thursday but will now be extended until at least August 19.

Mr. Andrews said the discovery of five more mystery cases was one of the reasons the extension was required.

The Premier also announced the cross-border bubble with New South Wales would be further tightened, with permits required for all cross-border residents from Friday night.

“From 1:00pm tomorrow, but not enforced until 6:00pm Friday, people will need to, if they want to use that bubble they will need to get a permit,” he said.

More exposure sites were added late last night, including public transport routes in Melbourne’s west which predate the state’s lockdown.

New South Wales

New South Wales recorded 344 new locally acquired COVID-19 cases and two more deaths in the 24 hours to 8:00pm yesterday.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian warned that the surge in cases seen over the last two days was likely to continue.

A man in his 90s and a man in his 30s have died after contracting COVID-19.

Ms. Berejiklian said the man in his 30s had other underlying health conditions and the man in his 90s was not vaccinated.

She says there has been an increase in cases in the neighbouring LGAs of Bayside, Burwood and Inner West.

Fourteen new cases were confirmed in the Hunter region overnight.

Two more cases have been reported in Dubbo. 

The Premier confirmed that Dubbo will go into lockdown from 1:00pm today.

There are currently 374 COVID-19 cases admitted to hospital, with 62 people in intensive care, 29 of whom require ventilation.

Of those in intensive care, three are in their 20s, seven are in their 30s, six in their 40s, 14 in their 50s, 13 in their 60s, 16 in their 70s, and three in their 80s.

Source: ABC News, ABC News