News

As Cases And Hospitalisations Are Peaking, Gladys Berejiklian Is Ending Daily Press Conferences

At least our pre-11am anxiety will calm down? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

by Edwina Storie  10 September 2021
Premiere Gladys Berejiklian in pink jacket

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The daily 11am press conferences that have punctuated life in lockdown for NSW will come to an end this week.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has confirmed the last will be on Sunday. This is despite cases still having not yet peaked, and the number of daily deaths continuing to rise in the state. Today we had 1542 COVID cases, and nine deaths. Today was the worst day of cases Australia has ever seen, including 49 cases in prisons.

Updates will instead come via a video link hosted by a NSW Health official. Berejiklian’s argument is that the public needs to start living with COVID, and thinking about what that means.

Despite ending the daily briefings we’ve come to expect during this life-changing pandemic, Berejiklian says the public cannot afford to slack off: “I just want to give this stronger message if I can; and that is we can’t afford to have people let down their guard. All the work we have done in planning, all the work we have done as to what we will be able to do at 70 percent, and obviously once we present the 80 percent double-dose [vaccinations] is based on the fact that these restrictions remain in place until otherwise advised.”

Berejiklian said today that case numbers would peak in the next week, and that “hospitalisation and intensive care needs [will] peak in October”.

Berejiklian has been a popular state leader, rewarded for steering the state through other outbreaks — though never as bad as this one. NSW has the highest number of COVID cases the nation has ever seen.

The end of the conferences mean journalists will no longer be able to instantly press the state government daily on its management of the outbreak, such as the policing of Western Sydney, and the uneven distribution of vaccines — particularly in vulnerable groups. We’re also yet to manoeuvre through the lifting of restrictions for fully vaccinated people.

Berejiklian pushed back against journalists about the ending press conferences, saying, “Whenever I need to speak to the public I absolutely will… The community knows we are working 24/7, day and night.”

“NSW [Government] prides itself on having the most transparent information available.”

“All of us have to start accepting that we need to live with COVID”