All of Sydney’s eastern beaches to close on Sunday to enforce Covid-19 social distancing – as it happened

Closing up our live Australia coverage of coronavirus for the day, but you can keep on top of all the latest developments elsewhere with our global live blog.

But before you go, here’s the main developments from Australia today.

• The number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Australia went above 1000. NSW had 83 new cases, Victoria 51, Queensland 37, South Australia 17 and Western Australia 26. In total, Tasmania has 10 cases, ACT has 9 and NT has 5.
• Many of Sydney’s most famous beaches will be closed on Sunday. The NSW government announced any beach with more than 500 should be closed. The development followed pictures of a packed Bondi beach. “What happened at Bondi was unacceptable,” federal health minister Greg Hunt said.
• The Northern Territory announced that from 4pm on Tuesday, all entries to the state would have to go into quarantine for 14 days. There would be some exceptions.
• There will be fallout from a decision by NSW to allow the Ruby Princess cruise ship to dock and disembark in Sydney on Thursday. New reports have revealed that 158 sick passengers had also disembarked the ship in Sydney on 8 March before it left for a short cruise, and that several had high temperatures.
• The Victorian government announced a $1.7bn “economic survival and jobs package”.
• South Australia announced 17 new positive cases of Covid-19, including 10 from one US tour group that was now in isolation at their accommodation in the Barossa Valley. There are 18 in the group. Four have tested negative, and four more are waiting for results. The entire group self-isolated when the first person became sick, the state’s chief public health officer said.

So that’s that. Thanks for staying with us.

Take care of yourself, take care of others, and remember the rules that will protect you and the rest of us.

Writer, broadcaster and Guardian Australia contributor Geoff Lemon has caught coronavirus. He has some advice. Take care of yourself Geoff.

Guardian reporter Ben Smee has more on the docking of the Ruby Princess cruise ship in Sydney.

NSW health minister Brad Hazzard has told reporters that in hindsight, he would have waited for coronavirus test results first before letting passengers disembark.

Queensland has released its coronavirus figures for Saturday 21 March, confirming 37 new cases, bringing the total number of cases to 221.

There were 16 cases in the city’s north and six in the south.

The Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast had five new cases each.

There were four cases in the Darling Downs, west of Brisbane, and one in the Wide Bay area to north, an area that includes the city of Bundaberg.

The 37 new cases announced today is less than the 40 announced yesterday. The biggest single jump the state reported was on 19 March, when 50 cases were reported.

All of Sydney’s eastern suburbs beaches will be closed on Sunday, including Bondi, Bronte and Coogee.

Waverley Council and Randwick City Council said Maroubra, Coogee, Clovelly, Bronte, Bondi and Tamarama beaches would all close on Sunday.

The NSW government announced that a 500-person cap would now apply to beaches to restrict the potential spread of Covid-19, after images from social media showed people tightly packed on Bondi beach.

Sunny weather forecast for Sunday would likely see numbers break that 500-person cap, Randwick City Council said in a statement.

Randwick mayor Danny Said, said in a statement:

Throughout this pandemic, our priority has always been public health and safety and we are again prioritising this by taking this proactive decision.

The safest approach for everybody is for us not to open the beaches. For everybody’s own health, I urge people not to come to the beach on Sunday as you are potentially putting your health and the health of others at risk.

News agency AAP has more on the tour group in South Australia’s Barossa Valley, north of Adelaide.

The agency reports there are 18 people in the US tour group. On a day when the state declared 17 new confirmed cases of Covid-19, it was revealed that 10 of the positive tests had come from the tour group.

All 18 were in isolation in their accommodation and chief public health officer Prof Nicola Spurrier said none had needed hospital treatment.

Spurrier said the group had immediately self-isolated as soon as one person became ill.

“I’m actually quite calm about this because I know these people have done the right thing,” Prof Spurrier said.

“There is absolutely no reason for the people in the Barossa to panic.”

Because the group had been on an organised tour, Spurrier told reporters it was easier to track their recent movements using the tour’s itinerary.

Four other people in the group had also returned negative results while the remaining four are waiting for tests to be returned.

Kenny Rogers has passed away from natural causes at the age of 81.

A statement released by the music legend’s management said:

The family is planning a small private service at this time out of concern for the national COVID-19 emergency.

They look forward to celebrating Kenny’s life publicly with his friends and fans at a later date

Rogers toured Australia seven times, according to a report in Rolling Stone from 2014.

The Northern Territory government says anyone entering the state “by road, rail, air and sea” after 4pm on Tuesday 24 March will have to self-isolate for 14 days.

There will be some exemptions to the quarantine period for health and emergency services, defence and policing, flight crews and freight “with strict guidelines in place to monitor and manage this”.

Chief minister Michael Gunner said any arrivals would have to show they met the essential arrival criteria to be granted an exemption. Exemptions may also be made “on compassionate grounds”.

A formal declaration by the chief health officer under the Public and Environmental Health Act would make the new rules possible.

Gunner said:

The government is announcing these new measures today to give Territorians as much confidence as possible that we are taking every step possible to keep you safe.

This is an unprecedented action for the Northern Territory. But these are unprecedented times. The territory comes first. The health of Territorians always comes first.

He said the delivery of essential goods and services, including food and freight, would not be impacted. He added:

Our supermarkets and stores will be stocked.

These are trying times for Territorians. The measures we are implementing are tough, but their purpose is clear: to save lives, and keep Territorians safe.

That will always be our first priority.

The Australian newspaper is reporting that the Ruby Princess cruise ship that docked in Sydney on Thursday with four confirmed cases of people with Covid-19 on board had “had previously been sailing with 158 sick passengers on board”.

The newspaper reports those 158 passengers, of which 13 had high temperatures, had disembarked in Sydney on March 8 before the ship left for a short cruise around New Zealand.

Although the government has banned cruise ship arrivals, an exception was made for the Ruby Princess which docked in Sydney on Thursday.

On Friday, the NSW health minister, Brad Hazzard, said everyone who had disembarked the ship – about 2700 passengers – should self-isolate for 14 days.

Three of those who disembarked on Thursday were confirmed to have caught the virus. A fourth was a crew member who was being isolated on board the ship.

Health authorities in South Australia are reporting an increase of 17 cases of Covid-19 since yesterday, bringing the total in the state to 67.

One tourist group in the Barossa Valley have returned 10 positive tests. More to come on this.

Afternoon. Graham Readfearn here, grabbing the blog duties from Melissa Davey for the rest of the day.

My colleague Miles Martignoni has been in touch after looking at what mobile phone providers have been up to as people socially-isolate and start working away from offices.

Many have announced changes to their plans, so you might find you have more data to play with.

Most require you to register to receive the extra data, so check with your provider to see if you’re eligible.

• Telstra mobile and mobile broadband post-paid customers get an extra 25GB of data to use in Australia, and pre-paid customers an extra 10GB.
• Optus has added 20GB for post-paid plans and 10gb for pre-paid plans for some customers. You can check eligibility here.
• Vodafone is offering 5GB for post-paid customers and 3GB for pre-paid customers.

Thanks for following the latest Australian Covid-19 news with me, Melissa Davey. I’m handing over to my excellent colleague Graham Readfearn now, who will bring you all the news here throughout the evening. Contact him on Twitter here.

Still at the NSW press conference and health minister Brad Hazzard has handed it back over to NSW Health’s Dr Vicky Sheppeard to face the tough questions from reporters about why passengers were allowed to disembark the Ruby Princess cruise ship.

She said the department followed the national procedure for assessing cruise ships for Covid-19. Because the ship had only travelled between Sydney and New Zealand, it was deemed a low risk of people carrying the virus. People were allowed to disembark, but four people from the ship later tested positive for Covid-19, leaving NSW Health scrambling to alert the other 2,700 passengers onboard.

Sheppeard said the ship did not have Covid-19 testing capacity onboard but did have flu testing. Before the ship docked, 13 passengers were swabbed for flu, she said.

We decided even though we thought it was a low risk of Covid-19, we thought we’d bring those [flu] swabs to the lab and test them for Covid-19.

That’s how the cases were identified. NSW had followed national guidelines in allowing passengers to disembark after performing the national risk assessment, she said.

NSW Health’s Dr Vicky Sheppeard is holding a press conference, speaking about the 436 confirmed cases in the state.

Each day we are getting increased numbers of confirmed cases but the vast majority of those are people returning from overseas, particularly the United States and Europe ... There has been minimal exposure in the community. The other large number of cases are close contacts of confirmed cases.

The health minister, Brad Hazzard is speaking about the large number of people still congregating at Bondi Beach despite social-distancing rules that prevent mass outdoor gatherings. Hazzard appears to be blaming much of that on young people, saying:

I was bitterly disappointed when I was told there were large groups down at Bondi, that mecca for so many foreign tourists and also Australians to go to. Today there has been no real heeding of that [social distancing] message. The government has taken the steps needed to make sure people know this is [not acceptable]. Young people may feel this isn’t going to hurt me so why worry. It can hurt you and it can hurt your family and friends. Have a look overseas and see what’s happening in other countries.

It’s very, very bad overseas and if not for the work here we would have the same problem. But the problem is just over the horizon. Save yourself and save your family. No one wants to see enforcement, we want to see compliance. Just do it.

21 Mar 202000.35 EDT

Melissa Davey

Victorian police have conducted a number of spot checks to ensure people are self-isolating. In a statement, police said the checks were being done is response to requests from the Department of Health. Police said:

For operational reasons, we will not disclose how these checks are being undertaken or how many have been conducted so far. At this stage, no one has been charged with refusing or failing to comply with direction.

21 Mar 202000.33 EDT

Janine Israel

The mayor of Waverley, Paula Masselos, has been speaking at Bondi and she said they would clear “the whole of the water”, including of surfers. Surf lifesavers were headed out to disperse across the beach to deliver the news to everyone.

I asked if it would apply to Bondi Icebergs pool, which is at the south end of the beach, and the mayor said it was a private club but that they would be “Asking all our organisations to comply as much as possible”.

There were some disgruntled locals listening on; one complained about infringement of civil liberties, and said the beach was “sacred”. There are still people at the beach despite the closure.

Masselos said:

On behalf of everyone at Waverley Council, I strongly urge the public to observe health advice about social distancing when visiting our area, including our beaches.

The public must at all times keep a minimum safe distance from each other in public places and if you don’t need to be out in public, please consider staying at home.

The number of coronavirus cases in Australia has exceeded 1,000, as states updated their figures today.

• In New South Wales, the health department announced 83 new cases, the largest daily increase for the state so far. NSW now has 436 cases, and the state’s health minister, Brad Hazzard, is due to give an update at 3.30pm. The state has closed Bondi Beach temporarily after thousands of people ignored social distancing measures and flocked to the beach on Friday. Once it reopens, if lifesavers see more than 500 people on the beach at any one time, it will be closed.
• Meanwhile in Victoria, 51 new cases were reported overnight, bringing the state’s total to 229. It is just ahead of Queensland, which has 221 cases.
• A Northern Territory couple have tested positive to coronavirus, bringing cases in that state to five, and both were passengers aboard the Ruby Princess cruise ship which docked in Sydney.
• The federal health minister, Greg Hunt, today defended Australia’s testing regime, saying about 115,000 tests had been carried out, a higher rate per person than in the US. But Victoria’s health minister, Brett Sutton, said he would like to see more testing done.
• The shadow foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, has urged the government to do more to help Australians stranded overseas as flights are cancelled and borders close.
• This morning the Victorian government has announced what it described as a $1.7bn “economic survival and jobs package”.

Earlier, Hunt said Australians must start taking social distancing measures seriously:

If you are breaking those rules you are putting, not just yourself, but you’re putting other Australians at risk. What happened in Bondi was unacceptable and the local council must take steps to stop that occurring.

We need to be our best selves and our most responsible selves, and the vast majority are doing the right thing. To those small few who are doing the wrong thing, think of others; and to those who have local responsibility, discharge those responsibilities.