FRI COVID UPDATE – 882 NEW NSW CASES – HSC EXAMS NOV 9 – SCHOOLS START BACK OCT 25

The Premier announced this morning a new date for HSC exams – November 9 – and school pupils will start to go back to face-to-face learning from Term 4 October 25 with Kindy and Year 1 and then progressively other years.

Year 12 will get more time at school also from October and from November 8 all students will be back at school.

Anyone who works on a school campus will need to be vaccinated by November 8 and teachers will also have what the Premier called a “special day” on September 6 which means priority vaccinations for school staff at Qudos Stadium at Sydney Olympic Park

Students do not need to be vaccinated – it is not mandatory Education Minister Sarah Mitchell confirmed – though she stressed vaccines will be available for younger students.

Almost 70% of the education workforce has had a single vaccine shot, said the Premier.

Meanwhile, 882 new NSW cases – we’ll have the latest Hawkesbury numbers soon – and Penrith LGA was mentioned as an area which may have to go into an “LGA of concern” tighter lockdown if numbers of infected cases continue to rise.

There are currently 767 people in hospital with COVID, 117 are in ICU and 47 are on ventilators. Of those in ICU, 103 people are not vaccinated.

On the good news side of the ledger – there were 143,000 more jabs in the last 24 hours across NSW to a total of 6.4million. Some 62% of those vaccinated have now had their first dose.

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