Australia news LIVE: NSW records 38 new cases of COVID-19; AstraZeneca creators acknowledge ‘complicated’ blood-clotting debate

Good evening and thank you for following our live coverage of the day’s events. Here’s everything you need to know now:

• Prime Minister Scott Morrison says the growing cluster of COVID-19 cases in Sydney “doesn’t just have implications for Sydney” but the whole country. The federal government has pledged an extra 300,000 doses of coronavirus vaccines to be distributed to NSW but says this won’t affect supplies earmarked for other states. The federal government is also removing the assets test that previously applied to Commonwealth disaster payments for NSW workers hit by the pandemic.

• Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley has urged residents not to travel to NSW and warned more areas outside Greater Sydney may be declared “red zones” under Victoria’s traffic light travel permit system. Under current restrictions, Victorians returning to the state from NSW must complete 14 days’ home quarantine but the state government is not ruling out a hard border with NSW.
• NSW reported 38 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, the highest number of local cases recorded in a single day in more than 14 months. Eleven of the cases were in the community for their entire infectious period and nine were only in isolation for part of their infectious period.

• Forty COVID-19 patients in NSW are now in hospital, with eleven of those in intensive care. Three of those in ICU are on ventilators. Seventeen people admitted to hospital are under 55 and of those 10 are under the age of 35. Of the eleven people in ICU, one is in their 30s.
• NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant said that while the local government areas of Liverpool, Canterbury-Bankstown and Fairfield in Sydney’s south-west had been singled out as areas of concern, “overnight we are also seeing cases pop up everywhere”. Late on Thursday, NSW Health issued a fresh warning for residents in a number of lower north shore and north-west suburbs after COVID-19 was detected in the Boronia Park sewerage network.
• NSW Police will conduct a high-visibility operation in south-west Sydney from 7am tomorrow to ensure compliance with the three-week lockdown in Greater Sydney.
• West Australian Premier Mark McGowan says it’s a “statement of the bleeding obvious” that his state will keep its border shut to NSW unless the eastern state brings the growing COVID-19 cluster under control.

This is Michaela Whitbourn signing off on the live blog for the evening. My colleague Broede Carmody will be back at 6am tomorrow to keep you informed of the latest news and views.

An internal inquiry has found a former Federal Circuit Court judge harassed two young women.

The inquiry found that former Parramatta-based judge Joe Harman, who has since resigned, repeatedly emailed a junior staff member with harassing comments, and the behaviour escalated to two instances of unwanted hugging. The woman made a complaint to the court in April last year and has been on mental health leave since.

Alarmingly, when the woman raised her concerns, she was initially told “there’s not much you can do about it because he’s a judge”.

The other complainant, a law student, made her complaint in September last year.The latest findings of poor behaviour from a judge comes after former high court judge Dyson Heydon was found to be a serial sexual harasser of young women.

Today on our podcast Please Explain, senior writer Jacqueline Maley joins Nathanael Cooper to discuss the latest findings of poor behaviour in Australian courts.

To date, more than 8.7 million COVID-19 vaccination doses have been administered across the country and Australia has ticked over the 10 per cent mark for people who have been fully immunised with two doses.

States and territories have administered more than 3.76 million doses, while GPs have administered more than 4.95 million.

More than 55 per cent of the over 50s have had at least one dose of a vaccine, and almost 32 per cent of the eligible population (those aged 16 and over) have had one dose.

Currently 5115 GPs, 197 Commonwealth vaccination clinics, 158 Aboriginal Controlled Community Health Organisations and 65 pharmacies are administering vaccinations around the country alongside state-run hubs.

South-east Asia correspondent Chris Barrett reports that Australia will send 2.5 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Indonesia as well as testing kits and ventilators as part of a $12 million package for oxygen-related equipment announced on Wednesday night.

The support effort comes as south-east Asia’s largest country suffers a devastating new wave of the Delta variant of COVID-19 that has caused infections and deaths to climb to record levels and left hospital beds and oxygen in short supply.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne said she had spoken to her Indonesian counterpart Retno Marsudi on Wednesday and confirmed an assistance package for Australia’s near neighbour as it battles the worst virus outbreak of the region.

It includes a shipment of AstraZeneca vaccines by the end of the year as well as more than 40,000 rapid antigen test kits, 1000 ventilators, up to 700 oxygen concentrators and more than 170 oxygen cylinders.