CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
The Greater Sydney Outbreak officially became the Greater NSW outbreak over the weekend, after a string of transmissions in rural areas triggered a statewide lockdown.
Today there was 18 cases in western NSW to 8pm last night: 16 in Dubbo and two in Bourke. After the reporting period, an additional case was recorded in Broken Hill.
Ten new cases were reported in the Hunter-New England area, including one which has no known source.
The numbers haven’t steadied In the four days since then either, but frontline health workers in the bush remain confident that they are well resourced enough to manage a spike of any size.
What, with all of the extremely well-funded hospitals that the National Party has tirelessly fought for every day for the last 50 years.
As the number one priority for The National Party, rural hospitals are constantly at the centre of furious debate every time one of these clean boot cowboy MPs board a tax-payer-funded flight to Canberra.
That’s why no one is worried.
In the 1500 person far-west NSW town of Narralongett, local nurse Merryl Kennedy (79) says they are more than prepared for the potential spike in numbers amongst the town’s most vulnerable elderly and Indigenous population.
“We’ve got six beds” she says.
“Not many towns out this way with 6 beds”
“But the Honourable Ian Sinclair came good on his promise to our town when he came out here during the 1984 election campaign. We went from 4 beds to 6 beds, not even 12 months later”
Merryl stares at the yellowing portrait of Mother Mary hanging from the exposed asbestos in the hallway.
“And the ventilator we lent to Liverpool Hospital is on its way back they’ve told us” she smiles.
“We are all good here”
“This virus won’t stand a chance in the bush”
“Now excuse me, I need to boil some sheets”
While towns like Narralongett await the storm of new cases, NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro urged regional residents to come forward for testing and jabs, and to not get “caught up” in the comparisons of the two available jabs, that were created by concerted Coalition messaging that inferred one was better than the other, in an effort to buy more time until enough had arrived.
