Australia Records No New Locally Acquired Coronavirus Cases For First Time Since Pandemic Started

Australia has reached a huge milestone in the fight against the coronavirus.

Yesterday (Tuesday, June 9), authorities recorded no new locally acquired coronavirus cases for the first time since the pandemic began.

Every state and territory happily reported back to officials that there hasn't been a single local resident to contract the deadly virus.

Two Covid-19 tests came back positive, however they are from people overseas who are now in hotel quarantine in New South Wales.

PA

Only seven cases of community transmissions have been recorded in Australia over the past week. Six were in Victoria and one was in Queensland.

The numbers of community transmissions in Australia have been so low that officials in New South Wales have barely used the federal government's Covid Safe App.

A NSW Health spokesperson has told News Corp: "As new cases in NSW have predominantly been in people in hotel quarantine in the past 13 days, we have had limited opportunity to use the app during this time.

"The app complements the rigorous system of contact tracing undertaken by expert teams of 150 people across NSW Health. Members of a contact tracing team can, and have, accessed app data using strict privacy rules.

PA

"So far, data has been accessed fewer than 10 times."

Prime Minister Scott Morrison urged everyone in the country to get the app so that contact tracing could be permitted if and when an outbreak happened in a particular area.

However, there has been such a lack of new cases that the app, thankfully, hasn't been needed yet.

There is concern amongst health experts that the Black Lives Matter protests held around Australia on the weekend could lead to new cases.

PA

Australian Medical Association chief Dr Tony Bartone said: "We need to be very clear - we are still very much in the early phase of dealing with COVID-19. Mass gatherings are certainly the last gatherings on the list [of restrictions] and it was clearly against the advice of all the health authorities.

"[The] only safe way...of minimising any risk of it [coronavirus] spreading over the next 14 days is to ensure that we keep our distance from the rest of the community."

Pictures show the vast majority of people who attended the protest demonstrations in capital cities across the country wore face masks to avoid spreading or catching the virus. However, officials say we won't know whether the mass gatherings resulted in more coronavirus cases for a few weeks.

There have been more than 7,200 infections across Australia since the pandemic began and 80 per cent of those cases are from people coming in overseas. That is a mixture of Australians returning home and travellers.

Globally, there have been 7.1 million cases and 408,000 deaths.

Topics: News, Coronavirus, Australia

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie is a Trending Journalist at LADbible. His first job was as a newsreader and journalist at the award winning Sydney radio station, Macquarie Radio. He was solely responsible for the content broadcast on multiple stations across Australia when the MH17, Germanwings and AirAsia disasters unfolded. Stewart has covered the conflict in Syria for LADbible, interviewing a doctor on the front line, and has contributed to the hugely successful UOKM8 campaign.

@stewartperrie