COVID-19 Diaries: Eastern Suburbs Outbreak in Sydney

Photographs from around the Potts Point COVID-19 outbreak area.

A pop up testing clinic has been set up in Rushcutters Bay, just up the road from the prestigious Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, where a case of the virus was reported last week. The Apollo restaurant, which was deep-cleaned on Friday, along with the Thai Rock restaurant, have also both been centres of outbreaks.

How these COVID clusters in Sydney’s wealthy, mostly white eastern suburbs have been treated by authorities and the mainstream media stands in stark contrast to similar outbreaks in Sydney’s south west, or in Victoria’s public housing estates, where police descended and locked down the overwhelmingly poor, multicultural community overnight.

Community sports, where teams of up to 20 (40 on a field in close contact at once) also stands in contrast to the recent Black Lives Matter protest of around 50 people at the Domain, which was shutdown by around 500 police. Meanwhile, crowds of up to 10,000 are currently allowed at large commercial sporting events.

As the number of cases of COVID-19 continues to rise in NSW, more and more people are beginning at wear masks, as was evidenced today around the eastern suburbs and the Sydney Opera House.

All this, while Victoria is due to go into Stage 4 lockdown on Wednesday.

Part of an ongoing series, ‘COVID-19 Diaries’.

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COVID-19 Diaries: Deep Clean at The Apollo

A special team of hygiene workers deep clean The Apollo restaurant in Potts Point, after COVID-19 cases were linked to the well-known eatery earlier this week.

While record coronavirus cases were detected in Victoria today, new outbreaks around Sydney signalled a growing unease about the prospect of a second wave in Australia’s largest city.

Four cases have been linked to The Apollo and eleven to the inner eastern suburb of Potts Point.

As of today, there is a total of 16,303 active cases of COVID-19 in Australia with 189 deaths.

Part of an ongoing series, ‘COVID-19 Diaries’.

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COVID-19 Diaries: Community Sports

COVID-19 guidelines are posted up around the Waverly Oval in Bondi for a community Australian Rules football match, urging players and spectators to practice social distancing and register their attendance via a QR code.

While cases of COVID-19 continue to sprout up around Sydney, gatherings are still permitted in NSW, including at places of worship, shopping centres, restaurants, bars and sports events, albeit only under certain conditions.

This is in stark contrast to Victoria which is currently under Stage 3 lockdown.

Part of an ongoing series, ‘COVID-19 Diaries’.

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COVID-19 Diaries: Sze Yup Kwan Ti Temple

Worshippers at Sze Yup Kwan Ti Temple in Glebe take to wearing medical masks as traces of the second wave of COVID-19 begin to appear across NSW, and after Victoria went into Stage 3 lockdown this week.

Authorities in NSW are urging people to wear masks in public, while they will be mandatory in Victoria from tomorrow night.

Part of an ongoing series, ‘COVID-19 Diaries’

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COVID-19 Diaries: Joss Paper

Chinese joss paper inscribed with prayers to the gods for protection against the COVID-19 virus, at the Sze Yup Kwan Ti Temple in Glebe.

More pics to come.

Part of an ongoing series, ‘COVID-19 Diaries’

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COVID-19 Diaries: Uncle Jesse Twice Removed

Due to COVID-19 social distancing restrictions, a simple fly screen separates Uncle Jesse Barker and his wife of 50 years, Aunty Anne, on a visit to the Heritage Aged Care facility in Botany, where Uncle Jesse has resided for the last few years.

Uncle Jesse is a survivor of the ‘Stolen Generation’. He was removed from his family as a child and taken to the infamous government-run Kinchela Aboriginal Boys Training Home near Kempsey in northern NSW, where he suffered immense abuse at the hands of those in charge.

Now, some seventy years later, Uncle Jesse has once again been separated from his family, this time as a result of the coronavirus, which has limited visits and prevented all direct physical contact with his family. In an effort to support their residents, the aged care home has recently opened a visiting window, where the residents can safely interact with their families from behind a screen.

Aunty Anne visits her long-time husband every second day. Each visit now ends with the couple holding their hands up against their respective sides of the dividing screen before Aunty Anne departs, at least until her next visit.

Part of an ongoing series, ‘COVID-19 Diaries’.

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COVID-19 Diaries: Detecting the Virus

An image of fluorescent particles under a powerful electro-microscope at Westmead Hospital’s pathology unit indicates the presence of COVID-19.

Since the start of the pandemic, over 830,000 COVID-19 tests have been conducted in NSW alone, currently averaging around 20,000 tests a day.

New outbreaks around the state and especially in Victoria where several hotspots around Melbourne have emerged, have raised concerns that the virus is still not yet contained in Australia.

Part of an ongoing series, ‘COVID-19 Diaries’.

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COVID-19 Diaries: Frontline Worker, Nancy

Portraits of frontline nurse, Nancy, who works out at the Macquarie Park COVID-19 testing centre.

Part of an ongoing series, COVID-19 Diaries.

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COVID-19 Diaries: Drive-Through Testing Centre

Photographs of the drive-through pop-up COVID-19 testing centre at Macquarie Park, where healthcare workers Nancy and David work shifts, testing increasing numbers of people.

As fears of a second wave grow, and as clusters of the virus emerge in Victoria, more and more members of the public are self-admitting for testing around the country.

Part of an ongoing series, COVID-19 Diaries.

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COVID-19 Diaries: Mobile Testing Centre

Photographs of a mobile COVID-19 Testing Centre, designed and developed by Deborah Asher Barnstone and Robert Barnstone for local use in Australia, as well as for international contexts.

Designed to be portable, adaptable and affordable, the centre is made from a retrofitted shipping container with the ability to be deployed either as part of a drive through pop-up testing clinic or shipped to remote parts of the world. It is currently set up at Macquarie Park in Sydney (photos in-situ to follow).

Part of an ongoing series, COVID-19 Diaries.

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COVID-19 Diaries: Dentists

Portrait of dentist, David Kagan and assistant, Lauren, with personal protective equipment (PPE) in their dental surgery.

While current COVID-19 cases are low in Australia and as social distancing regulations are slowly unwound, frontline workers are still at risk. Dentists are some of those most exposed to possible infection and have had to take extra precautions, such as wearing PPE and implementing a high degree of sanitisation with their patients.

Part of the ongoing series, ‘COVID-19 Diaries’.

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COVID-19 Diaries: Mass at St Canice

Father Paul Fyfe conducts an online Catholic mass via a laptop computer and Facebook at St. Canice church, due to social distancing laws restricting in-person attendances. These laws have been recently relaxed, allowing small gatherings to attend religious services. However, social distancing measures, such as keeping at least a 1.5 metre distance along pews and using hand sanitiser, still must be observed.

Part of an ongoing photographic series, 'COVID-19 Diaries'.

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COVID-19 Diaries: Touch Don't Touch

A large touch screen at Market City ironically warns people to avoid contact.

Part of an ongoing photographic series, 'COVID-19 Diaries'.

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COVID-19 Diaries: Air Lock

Medical scientist, Basel Suliman, stands in an air lock separating the outside world from the pathology laboratories where vital research work on the deadly COVID-19 virus is being conducted.

As economies around the world open back up, a safe and effective vaccine is still 12-18 months away.

Part of an ongoing photographic series, 'COVID-19 Diaries'.

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COVID-19: Out Into The Darkness

Masked commuters walk out into the darkness at Railway Square.

As COVID-19 related social distancing restrictions are unwound in NSW, opinions are still divided on whether it is too soon to be encouraging the lifting of such measures.

Some argue that the economy is being put before public health, while others say that it’s time to get business back on track. Fears of a second wave of COVID-19 still linger, as do the concerns for the state of the flagging economy.

Either way, as we move forward, the world seems to be stepping out into the unknown as it tries to deal with the deadly virus.

Part of an ongoing photographic series, 'COVID-19 Diaries'.

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COVID-19 Diaries: PhotoLab Closed

A woman wearing a face mask walks past one of the last few remaining family-owned photolabs in Sydney, which recently closed its doors due to the COVID-19-led economic downturn.

Small businesses were already vulnerable before the coronavirus hit, but the pandemic has quickly tipped many over the edge. With the advent of digital camera technology, photolabs had been on the decline for decades. This outlet at Railway Square was a rare example of a once thriving industry.

Part of an ongoing photographic series, 'COVID-19 Diaries'.

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COVID-19 Diaries: Virologist, Susan Alderson

A portrait of virologist, Susan Alderson, of the Institute of Clinical Pathology & Medical Research (ICPMR) at Westmead Hospital. Susan and her colleagues, headed by Professor Dominic Dwyer, have been leading the world in serology research and testing of COVID-19.

Blood serum testing has been crucial in mapping the spread of the highly infectious coronavirus across Australia, which informs how the disease can be contained.

The pathology unit at Westmead Hospital has been operating 24/7 since the outbreak of COVID-19, with teams on rotating shifts.

Part of an ongoing photographic series, 'COVID-19 Diaries'.

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COVID-19 Diaries: NTEU Car and Bike Convoy Protest

Several hundred people in more than 60 cars and on more than 20 bicycles assembled at Woolloomooloo this morning to protest against cuts to the tertiary and higher education sectors.

During COVID-19, social distancing laws mean that mass gatherings, such as rallies, have been deemed illegal. So activist groups have had to formulate alternative means of protesting to circumvent these new laws safely. Car convoys have become one way to publicly protest en masse under the current regime.

Universities have been hit hard by the economic fallout from COVID-19, particularly with Australia’s closed borders preventing an intake of international students. But hit hardest of all are the casual workers, academics and professional staff at universities, many of whom have lost work, or are threatened with reduced working conditions and pay. They are not eligible for the Federal Government’s Jobkeeper allowance.

Universities have become increasingly market-driven institutions over the last 20 years or so and its workforce has become far more casualised and insecure. There is currently an internal struggle within the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), whose national executive is proposing a compromise deal with universities. Many rank and file members are unhappy with the deal and are urging the union membership to vote ‘No’, against the upcoming so-called 'National Jobs Protection Framework'. Today’s protest highlighted some of these issues.

The convoy departed from Mrs Maquarie’s Chair and made its way to Liberal Party headquarters on William Street.

Part of an ongoing photographic series, 'COVID-19 Diaries'.

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