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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Nino Bucci and Mostafa Rachwani

NSW sends Muswellbrook and Port Macquarie into lockdown; new Qld restrictions after four local cases; Vic overtakes NSW in case numbers – As it happened

That’s it for today, thanks for reading

Here’s the main stories on Tuesday, 28 September:

Updated

One interesting snippet from the Victorian Covid-19 update that was just released: there’s been sewage detections across regional parts of the state, including Cobram, Philip Island, Seymour, Ballarat North and Bendigo.

AAP reports that Victorians calling paramedics with emergencies are already facing troubling delays, weeks out from when demand on the state’s health system is expected to peak.

The story touches on this footage, which appears to show ambulances ramping outside the Northern hospital in the Melbourne suburb of Epping.

The AAP story is here:

Victorians calling triple zero are facing “unacceptable delays” while ambulance ramping has been seen outside a Melbourne hospital, as the state’s health system struggles to keep on top of demand.

In a video posted to social media on Monday night, dozens of ambulances can be seen waiting outside Melbourne’s Northern hospital.

The state’s ambulance union says this is happening at hospitals across Victoria.

“It is very common, that you have that many crews ramped at the Northern hospital, and any of the other hospitals across the state. We’ve seen it much worse,” Victorian Ambulance Union secretary Danny Hill told AAP.

In another incident on Monday, Hill said people calling triple zero were forced to wait up to 10 minutes before their call was transferred to either police, fire or ambulance.

Health minister Martin Foley said triple zero delays were related to demand from people in Covid-19 outbreak hotspots, particularly those in Melbourne’s north and west.

He encouraged Victorians to only call triple zero “for the most urgent calls” in coming weeks and months, which he said would be “a hugely challenging period”.

Hill warned that ramping, when ambulances are forced to park outside hospitals because the emergency department is full, will only get worse as Covid-19 cases continue to climb and restrictions are slowly eased.

Burnet Institute modelling shows Victoria could be recording between 1,400 and 2,900 daily cases when the Delta outbreak peaks by the end of October.

At that stage, hospitalisations may climb to between 1,200 and 2,500.

With 375 people in hospital with Covid-19 on Tuesday, Foley said frontline healthcare staff “are working like never before”.

He said plans are in place to supplement the state’s workforce, with parts of the health system being “deprioritised” and partnerships with the private sector being developed “to switch demand from the public sector to the private sector”.

Updated

A man has been attacked by a crocodile in the Northern Territory, AAP reports:

A 60-year-old man is in hospital in the Northern Territory after being bitten on the arm by a crocodile during a cruise on the Adelaide River.

St John Ambulance officials took a triple zero call after the incident on Monday and sent a crew to rendezvous with the victim and those helping him.

But they said by the time the crew arrived the man had been taken to the Palmerston hospital in a private car.

NT Health said on Tuesday the man was in a stable condition but would not provide further details on the nature of his injuries.

It remained unclear if the man was a worker on the cruise or a patron.

Reports suggested the crocodile was three to four metres long and the bite resulted in heavy bleeding.

Work safety group NT WorkSafe said its on-call inspector received an anonymous call on Monday evening from a concerned member of the public regarding the incident on a tourist attraction.

“NT WorkSafe is making inquiries to verify the information provided in the call,” it said in a statement.

However, it said all Territory businesses were reminded it was a requirement to notify of any serious injuries in the workplace.

“While there are no specific regulations relating to crocodiles, crocodiles are an apex predator and are a well-known hazard in the Top End for all businesses operating in their habitat,” the statement said.

“All businesses operating in crocodile habitats have a duty to minimise, or if possible eliminate the risk of injury from crocodiles.”

The Adelaide River, about an hour from Darwin, is well known for its jumping crocodile cruises where the animals are lured out of the water with food.

Updated

No point standing around being Aukus about things when there’s new deals you can go and sign.

The Australian competition regulator has argued it needs more powers to control Google’s dominance of the $9.5bn Australian online advertising industry, with 90% of ad impressions passing through at least one Google service in 2020.

As part of its long-running digital platforms investigation, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission launched an inquiry in March into the complex world of online ads and issues with the markets where those ads are bought and sold.

Read more on this here:

News.com.au is reporting that the federal government will soon announce a significant relaxing of restrictions on Australians stranded overseas.

The changes would reportedly mean that returnees could complete a seven-day home quarantine as soon as the 80% fully vaccinated milestone is reached.

I’ve not seen any official confirmation of this, but it would be a significant (and very much welcomed) development for the tens of thousands Australians who wish to return home. Just last week, we reported that number had reached 45,000.

Updated

The first German navy ship to visit Australia in more than 30 years has somehow managed to find its way into the hermit kingdom of Western Australia.

A joint Australian-German defence media release proclaims that the FGS Bayern has arrived in Fremantle for a week-long visit as part of a seven-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific.

The defence forces go on to say that:

While in Fremantle, Bayern’s crew of 200 officers and sailors will participate in a number of civic, social, sporting, and charity related engagements.

The port visit will be conducted in a COVIDSafe manner and in accordance with State Government requirements.

All personnel are fully vaccinated, have completed a 16-day quarantine period at sea and fulfilled all pre-arrival requirements, including COVID-19 testing before arriving in Western Australia.

Bayern will be berthed at Fremantle Harbour from 28 September until 5 October.

Bayern is one of four Brandenburg Class Frigates which the German Navy operates. It is the first visit of a German Navy ship to Australian waters since 1988.

Scott Morrison has met with a number of Liberal MPs concerned the government could try to appease the National party by adopting a policy roadmap to achieve net zero emissions without formally signing on to the 2050 target.

With some Nationals implacably opposed to the Coalition adopting the target ahead of the Cop26 in Glasgow, Liberals in marginal and metropolitan seats have become increasingly worried that the prime minister may not be able to land his long-telegraphed climate policy pivot.

Read the rest of this story here:

Updated

There’s an update just filed from AAP on Darko Desic, the fugitive homeless man who lived in plain sight on Sydney’s northern beaches for almost three decades before handing himself in:

A Sydney man has formally admitted breaking out of a NSW jail 29 years ago after turning himself in two weeks ago.

Darko Desic, 64, walked into Dee Why police station three Sundays ago to confess to breaking out of a jail in Grafton on the state’s north coast on the night of 31 July 1992.

In central local court on Tuesday, he pleaded guilty to escaping from lawful custody.

He is due to be sentenced on 28 October.

Desic’s case drew worldwide attention as well as support from the northern beaches community where he had reportedly been living for years.

A GoFundMe crowdfunding site set up by practising psychotherapist Belle Higgins has so far raised $30,000 in an attempt to pay Desic’s lawyer and get a roof over the ex-convict’s head once he is out of jail.

“He has stayed out of trouble and has had this problem hanging over his head for half his life,” she posted.

“Also he has helped our community and been a decent fellow.”

Desic was jailed in 1990 for drug supply, serving 19 months of a 33-month minimum term until his escape, allegedly done with a hacksaw blade and bolt cutters.

Upon his return to custody, he resumed serving that jail term, which would have him first eligible for parole on 1 November next year.

Here is the feature on this case we published over the weekend:

Updated

The Liberal Democrats are seeking to launch a high court challenge against new laws that could force the party to change its name less than 12 months out from the next federal election.

Lawyers for the libertarian party have filed a case against the commonwealth in the high court over changes to Australia’s electoral laws which would force parties to seek permission to use any words in their name that are already used by existing parties.

Updated

The big push to up vax rates in Melbourne’s north continues apace.

This lovely piece by Lorena Allam about her resident magpies has reminded me to remind YOU about Bird of the Year!

There’s a fair body of evidence suggesting the pandemic has been good for incumbent governments, but impossible to know how this will play out when the Victorian election is held in about 14 months.

Updated

Minimum regional mobile performance standards could be legislated if the government collected data about phone capacity, according to a new paper from RMIT University.

While the government conducts a review into regional telecommunications every three years, Prof Mark Gregory said achieving outcomes based only on anecdotal evidence can be difficult, particularly related to performance.

Full story here:

Updated

The NSW opposition leader, Chris Minns, has accused the government of leaving business “inadvertently” on the front line of enforcing continued restrictions on unvaccinated residents in coming months.

Earlier today, confusion arose as to whether police would enforce looming public health orders that will bar unvaccinated patrons from venues and some businesses until December.

The police commissioner, Mick Fuller, suggested his officers would have no role in patrolling venues to enforce the rules, while the health minister, Brad Hazzard, said enforcement would be a police responsibility.

Minns says he is concerned businesses will be left to enforce the new rules “with no legal protection”. He says:

Businesses will inadvertently be the front line of mandating the rules set out by the NSW government. Cafes, gyms, restaurants, pubs have every right to demand some protection for enforcing these rules. We’ve already seen businesses say they won’t reopen until 1 December to avoid issues with enforcing vaccination rules. The government must provide certainty and support for business that they will have the legal protection, we are also concerned that this is sending the wrong signals on vaccination.

Updated

Victoria has officially overtaken New South Wales in daily Covid case numbers, recording its highest since the beginning of this Delta outbreak.

It comes as the state’s health department revealed an error meant almost 150 cases had not been tallied over the weekend.

On Tuesday, Victoria recorded 867 new, locally acquired cases and four deaths.

Read the full story here:

Updated

Like when you squint at something because it doesn’t quite add up, that kind of refocusing?

Here’s the full wrap of the Covid-19 situation in Queensland, and the not unimportant matter of what it means for the NRL grand final:

Just a reminder if you live in one of these places and are worried that in about two hours you will be in lockdown for a week: you can go to the supermarket during lockdown. Do not go there now. It will be a hellscape.

Muswellbrook and Port Macquarie to enter lockdown

Confirmation of news from earlier about lockdowns for Muswellbrook and Port Macquarie LGAs. Both areas will go into lockdown for a week, starting at 6pm:

Updated

Two Melbourne football club fans wanted by police on suspicion of flouting quarantine requirements to attend the AFL grand final on Saturday have reportedly been captured.

Earlier today, WA police posted pictures of the men on their Facebook page and appealed for any more information, saying it was suspected they had travelled to the state’s south-west. But the Facebook post was removed about an hour ago, and it has been reported they have now been taken into custody.

Updated

The NSW LGAs of Muswellbrook and Port Macquarie are reportedly set to go into lockdown, but I haven’t had this confirmed yet.

Hospital system prepared for easing of restrictions under national plan, Brendan Murphy says

Back to the Covid committee, the health department secretary Brendan Murphy is being asked about the ability of the health system to cope when restrictions are eased under the national plan.

Murphy said work by ANZICS – the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society – had estimated there were currently 2,000 ICU beds in use, with the potential for this to scale up by another 2,500 if necessary, with 500 of these staffed and ready to go.

“The important thing is that the jurisdictions are now doing significant additional work to refine what they will see as able to be staffed in that additional capacity,” he said.

Murphy added that the prime minister had considered “high-level aggregated data” about the ability of the health system to cope when the country reopened under the terms of the national plan. He said:

At an aggregate level we are comfortable that with the various mitigations that are proposed in phase B, with the ability to tailor the testing, tracing and quarantine and public health and social measures, at that vaccination rate, we should be able to control outbreaks and we are already seeing evidence of that in NSW.

Labor senator Katy Gallagher, whose child contracted Covid-19 and was managed under community care arrangements, said she was concerned the country was not prepared. She asked:

Do we have any understanding of how this is going to roll out across the community? Because I can say, having just been through it, I was completely unprepared for what happened at my house, and I am worried that we are going to have thousands of families in the same situation as me, completely unprepared for what’s coming their way.

Updated

State governments have released reopening roadmaps and are on their way to vaccinating us to freedom, and while the thought of a return to the great Australian summer has provided a morale boost, the knowledge of all the days we have lost to lockdowns this year remains difficult to scrub from our minds.

Among my peers of twentysomethings, there is a sense we have been robbed of an uncomfortable enough chunk of what is meant to be the best time of our lives.

Full piece here:

Government to set up $2bn loan scheme to support Australian mineral projects

The federal government says it will set up a $2bn loan facility to support Australian critical minerals projects, just days after the Quad leaders’ meeting in Washington DC where supply chains were a key issue.

The government had flagged the plans yesterday, but released a statement today outlining some details, saying it wanted to make Australia “a world-leader in the mining and downstream processing of in-demand resources, supporting jobs and communities, particularly in regional Australia”.

The government said the plans to offer up to $2bn in finance over coming years were to “ensure we are providing the rare earths and other critical minerals that are essential to the supply chains of the new energy economy”.

The loan facility will be managed by Export Finance Australia and report to the trade minister, Dan Tehan. The scheme will operate for 10 years, or until a total of $2bn in finance has been provided.

Readers will notice the climate messages in the government’s release, amid ongoing Coalition divisions over the prospect of Australia making a formal commitment to net zero emissions by 2050 in the lead up to November’s Glasgow summit.

Tehan said Australian critical minerals would “help other countries in the Indo-Pacific and beyond to accelerate their industrial reforms and transition to low-carbon technologies and that benefits Australia and our partners”.

The minister for resources and water, Keith Pitt, a Queensland National who has been developing a critical minerals strategy and has publicly signalled hesitancy to a net zero pledge, said:

The lithium industry alone, which is essential to develop new battery technology, is forecast to be worth $400bn globally by 2030 and initiatives like this will mean Australia is well placed to grab its share of the market.

The prime minister, Scott Morrison, said the idea was to fill finance gaps in critical minerals resources developments to get them off the ground.

The commercial dimensions of the critical minerals market mean it is a difficult place to get established. We want to ensure that Australia’s resources producers do get established so they can link up with others in our supply chains in a free and open Indo-Pacific. Critical minerals are a strategic area for governments too because they are fundamental to the future energy economy. These projects also mean jobs in construction, infrastructure development and ongoing roles for the mining sector.

The Hornsdale Power Reserve in South Australia.
The Hornsdale Power Reserve in South Australia. The lithium industry is expected to be worth $400bn globally bu 2030, Keith Pitts says. Photograph: SUPPLIED/PR IMAGE

Updated

The New South Wales health minister Brad Hazzard insists police will be responsible for enforcing entry restrictions on unvaccinated people – a position at odds with the state’s police commissioner who said officers would “not be walking through restaurants, cafes and pubs checking if people are double vaccinated”.

The state recorded 863 new cases and seven deaths in the past 24 hours, but hit a full vaccination rate of 60.4%, edging closer to the 70% target that will trigger an easing of restrictions, likely on 11 October.

Full story here:

You may remember the inquest of Wayne “Fella” Morrison, which we covered extensively earlier this year. Well our reporter Royce Kurmelovs is back in court for the case today, and you can follow bits and pieces here:

Restrictions ease from midnight for Victorians in lockdown

A reminder for Victorians: there will be a slight easing of restrictions from midnight tonight in locked-down areas.

The travel distance will increase to 15km from home (you can check your radius here) and “contactless” outdoor recreation – such as boating, tennis or golf – will be allowed, as will personal training with up to five people, as long as everyone is vaccinated.

Victoria is easing restrictions as the state is set to hit 80% of residents with at least one jab today.

Golf will be allowed in Melbourne from Wednesday.
Golf will be allowed in Melbourne from Wednesday. Photograph: William West/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

What to do if you’re an Australian in New Zealand? Charter a private jet home.

One day, when we’re all out of lockdown, we will* run an entire blog that is just people telling us about their dreams.

*we won’t

We have covered the Wilcannia outbreak extensively at Guardian Australia, but this feature from the Washington Post is worth some of your lunch hour too.

The ABC is reporting that two men have died in Dubbo, as Covid-19 continues to ravage parts of western NSW.

You may have seen earlier that Byron and Tweed LGAs would be coming out of lockdown as planned. Worth noting that Byron has a first dose percentage rate of only a shade above 60%, one of the lowest in NSW.

Here is a full report from AAP about the news from earlier today about approval for home testing:

Thank you Mostafa Rachwani. Tuesday, more like News-day amirite?

OK and with that, I will leave you with the always excellent Nino Bucci to cover the rest of the day’s news, thanks for reading.

Updated

Matson also said Victoria had growing cases in the west and south-east. She asked Victorians in the east to “remain vigilant” after cases appeared in Knox and the Yarra Ranges.

The four deaths were a man in his 80s from Whittlesea, a woman in her 80s and a man in his 70s, both from Hume, and a woman from Whittlesea, her age unknown.

The state is expected to hit its goal of having 80% first dose vaccination of those aged 16+ by the end of Tuesday.

Victoria health minister Martin Foley also announced Victorians would take part in a home quarantine pilot program, which will include some people already isolating and involves taking a daily selfie.

This app uses a downloaded picture from a smartphone, a selfie, to check in where you are meant to be when you are meant to be there.

It links back to location-based technology to confirm both the place you are and your identity at the time of the alert.”

Updated

So earlier at the NSW presser, the federal government’s announcement of the approval of rapid antigen tests came up, with the deputy CHO welcoming their introduction.

NSW Health’s Marianne Gale said the tests will be “part of a toolkit” of measures used to counter the pandemic, but both Gale and Hazzard said that details will be revealed in due time.

Gale, though, said that implementing them may be “operationally challenging”:

It’s clearly great to have more tools in the toolkit of options for testing and we’ll be looking at the best ways to deploy that.

We’ll be looking at those issues and looking at what practical settings [for the tests] actually makes sense as we go forward in a setting where we have to treat Covid like an endemic disease, more like flu.

Updated

Victorian health minister Martin Foley said the extra cases had been notified:

That software problem has been rectified by our partners in the pathology contracting area, and this, fortunately, did not have an impact on either the people concerned getting the test results.

Health deputy secretary Kate Matson said more than 50% of Tuesday cases are in the northern suburbs, including 270 in Hume, 125 in Whittlesea and 88 in Moreland.

There are now 375 people in hospital in Victoria being treated for Covid-19 and, of those, 81 are in intensive care and 61 are on a ventilator.

Health deputy secretary Kate Matson addresses the media during a press conference in Melbourne.
Health deputy secretary Kate Matson addresses the media during a press conference in Melbourne. Photograph: James Ross/AAP

Updated

ACT records 13 new cases

The Australian Capital Territory has recorded 13 new locally acquired cases today:

Victoria has overtaken New South Wales in daily case numbers, recording its highest total since the beginning of the Covid pandemic.

On Tuesday Victoria recorded 867 new, locally acquired cases and four deaths.

A software malfunction at the weekend in Victoria meant 149 cases were not counted in the overall numbers.

This included 140 cases that have now been added to Monday’s case numbers. The additional cases mean Victoria, which recorded 845 cases on Monday, surpassed NSW, which had 787, for the first time during this outbreak.

Updated

Brad Hazzard also confirmed at his presser that some regional areas could also be issued stay-at-home orders.

He has explained that essentially there is a bit of a crossover occurring, wherein some unvaccinated people in regional LGAs may be going into lockdown after 11 October, when the unvaccinated face restrictions across the state.

That would come after these areas have few restrictions, resulting in a backwards step for them.

Hazzard just puts it down to the pandemic itself:

As we have made those decisions about how we try to bring our entire state out, there have been some difficult decisions.

And I think the community need to understand that nothing is perfect in a pandemic.

Updated

NSW health minister Brad Hazzard and police commissioner Mick Fuller appear to be at odds over who will be enforcing public health orders restricting access to businesses and venues for unvaccinated residents. NSW is preparing to make a series of public health orders imposing continued restrictions for unvaccinated Australians, though it has signalled they will largely be eased from 1 December.

The plan has raised the prospect of business and venue owners enforcing restricted entry on unvaccinated patrons. Earlier Fuller said his officers won’t be checking the vaccination status of those out in public from 11 October. But Hazzard has just contradicted that position. Hazzard said he had not seen Fuller’s comments but said breaching a public health order is a crime, making police responsible for enforcement:

If the law says you have to be double vaccinated, then of course the police will enforce that, they have no choice but to enforce that.

Hazzard said it was not proposed that business owners would be fined if they allowed unvaccinated people into their premises. When asked why a business owner would bother having a fight with an unvaccinated customer if they would face no punishment, he said the media was “obsessing” over “minutiae”.

Updated

On that note, Brad Hazzard is asked about regional areas where access to the vaccine has not been as good as many areas in metropolitan Sydney, and he said he had some “sympathy” for the view:

I have sympathy with that view because we have had, as each one of you know – I don’t think there’s a journalist in the room who hasn’t been at a couple of hundred of these press conferences at least and one of the frustrations has always been the challenge to get vaccine available from overseas providers.

The federal government has done their best, in my view, but it has been a challenge and it’s remained a challenge. But right now, right now, there is more vaccine available in this country that we could have probably dreamed of and more access across New South Wales than we had dared dream of only a few months ago. Pharmacists across the state have Moderna.

There’s Pfizer available through the hubs and through some GPs. There’s AstraZeneca that’s been available for a long while. I think that in some areas, there have been some challenges getting vaccines but they has generally been availability of at least one of the vaccines but there’s been a little bit of pickiness and choosiness about that.

I think in the way that I would encourage the community to understand that when you’re going to have your flu shot, you don’t ask what brand it is. We never have. Go and have the vaccine that’s available because whatever vaccine is available is the best one to keep you safe.

A vaccination clinic in Broken Hill.
A vaccination clinic in Broken Hill. Photograph: Jenny Evans/Getty Images

Updated

Brad Hazzard is asked again about what he thinks of the commentary surrounding the freedoms unvaccinated people will have in NSW in December, and he gave a typically Hazzardesque answer:

Look, I’ve stood in these press conferences now more than 500 times and what I remember very well is one part of the room will be arguing one thing and the other part of the room will be arguing the other and you’ve got to expect that that reflects the community.

Journalists reflect the community and the community have a variety of views but, at the end of day, the decision our government and other governments, while we may not always agree with them, have done right along is their very best to try and make decisions to balance the interests of the community. Nothing is going to be perfect but everybody makes those decisions in their own and we’ve made ours. And we’re sticking to it.

Updated

We are also on standby for the Covid update from Victoria, due in two minutes.

Updated

Brad Hazzard is asked about hospitals and the rising number of people being infected at them:

Across the world, it is well understood that in a pandemic there are always going to be risks for individuals no matter where they are. Hospitals, by definition, have people who come to them with Covid and so there is always going to be that risk. But on the whole, if one looks at the risk factors, clearly, anybody who has any illnesses or problems that require going to hospital should still go to hospital.

At the end of the day, that should not deter others from coming to hospital because, if you are having a heart attack, a stroke or some other immediately life-threatening illness, the place to be is a hospital, because, obviously, you’re not going to be doing too well if you’re by yourself. The odds of getting the virus in hospital are still very, very small and we do need to keep that in mind.

Health workers in PPE outside entrance to a hospital
‘Anybody who has any illnesses or problems that require going to hospital should still go to hospital,’ says Brad Hazzard. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP

Updated

BreastScreen NSW to resume normal services

Brad Hazzard has also revealed that lifesaving breast screening services run by BreastScreen NSW will resume soon.

Services were cut back due to the Delta outbreak but BreastScreen NSW director Sarah McGill said they would on a case-by-case basis, based on an assessment of risk:

Our priority, with all services, will be to rebook women as soon as we possibly can, women who have had their appointment cancelled due to the temporary suspension will be contacted by their local services and allocated a prioritised booking.

Updated

Now for a graph, so you can see NSW’s gradual decline in case numbers in colour:

Byron and Tweed to come out of lockdown as scheduled

Brad Hazzard has just confirmed some good news, in that the Byron Bay and Tweed areas will be lifted from lockdown tomorrow, as scheduled:

Thank you to the community in those two areas who have complied with the directions in regard to the lockdown and thankfully we’ve had no further cases of concern so the public health team have advised that they can come out of lockdown.

Updated

Earlier, health minister Greg Hunt was asked what he made of NSW’s plan to open up to unvaccinated people from early December. He was asked whether the plan would encourage people to delay getting vaccinated.

Hunt:

I welcome the plan. My message to those people who haven’t been vaccinated, is that if you haven’t been vaccinated and you catch Covid you could die. It is as simple as that. The strongest possible incentive to be vaccinated is that you could die. If you don’t get vaccinated and you catch Covid. That is what we’re seeing in New South Wales at the moment, the figures are absolutely clear, that those people that are in ICU are overwhelmingly the ones that have not yet been vaccinated. And vaccination dramatically reduces your chances of catching Covid, of being hospitalised, of being admitted to ICU or of losing your life. So the strongest possible reason to be vaccinated is to save your life.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian was earlier forced to defend the plan. She said she’d actually gone harder on unvaccinated people than the Doherty Institute modelling had recommended. She told the ABC:

No matter what decision I announced yesterday, I would’ve been criticised. The Doherty report recommended from 80% that unvaccinated people participate in society. We said no, we’re going harder and more conservative.

It is unclear how the newly announced plan will work with an earlier announcement from the NSW government that it will make it illegal for unvaccinated people to attend venues and businesses.

Updated

Some details on the deaths now from NSW health minister Brad Hazzard, who’s said that they included four women and three men.

One person was in their 40s, another in their 50s, two in their 70s, two in their 80s and on person in their 90s.

Three of them were fully vaccinated, three had recieved one dose and one person was unvaccinated.

NSW records 863 cases and seven deaths

NSW has recorded 863 new locally acquired cases today, a rise on yesterday.

Sadly, the state also recorded seven deaths.

Updated

So we are on standby to hear the Covid update from NSW, which won’t feature the premier today.

Home testing approved by TGA

And we’ve switched over to federal health minister Greg Hunt, who is announcing that the TGA has approved home testing from 1 November.

Hunt says this is obviously subject to individual tests being approved as “safe and effective” but the approval is “an important additional protection” for Australians.

How this will work and how the tests will be made available is still uncertain:

As we increase these rates, one of the important things is that we can supplement what is known as a PCR testing are the testing that we all know if we go to a commonwealth clinic or a state clinic, that will be supplemented with the access to home testing for Australians.

The TGA at my request has been going through a thorough assessment, they will now move to make these tests available from 1 November and two steps additionally. One is that we have to have individual applications approved, specific tests have to be shown to be safe and effective, at this stage they have had over 70 expressions of interest and 33 tests have been approved for supervised use.

They will now be considered and made available if found to be safe and effective.

Updated

Will Queensland have different restrictions for the unvaccinated moving forward? This is what Yvette D’Ath had to say:

People in Queensland vaccinated or not have far more freedoms than anyone in New South Wales, the ACT or Victoria. Even with the roadmaps that we have seen, none of those jurisdictions have got a point in time in the roadmaps that they have released that show them getting to the same low level of restrictions that we have in Queensland.

Other than mask wearing and one per 2 sq m, we are very few restrictions on our entire economy. It really is for those jurisdictions to talk about when they think they can get to where we are now …

I hope that they can reduce their restrictions more so that people can enjoy Christmas and people can enjoy the sort of lifestyle we have here in Queensland.

But where we talk about Queensland opening up and a roadmap, we are as open as we can get other than borders. Because we have got the lowest restrictions possible other than mask wearing at the moment.

Updated

When will a decision be made on the NRL grand final? Jeannette Young says on the actual day (Sunday).

Updated

Jeannette Young is asked how concerned she is about the situation in the state:

I do have a reasonable level of concern. I am also comforted by the fact that Queenslanders have done such a good job each time we have had an outbreak. I think everyone is very comfortable with masks and we know that they protect and I am also comfortable with the amount of testing that is happening.

And I know now that we have had this announcement that the amount of testing will significantly increase. So as long as we all do that, we were masks, we maintain social distancing and we get tested, then of course we have the added benefit – every single day we are seeing the numbers of people who are vaccinated going up.

So all of those things mean that we can try and manage an outbreak like this, these two new ones, in a different way. But we will be keeping a very, very close eye on what happens over the next 24 to 48 hours to see if we need additional restrictions. As always, we are putting in place systems to protect the most vulnerable, that is those people in aged care, disability care, in our hospitals and in our prisons, so we already have that in place.

Plus, we have ramped up the use of PPE in our hospitals and facilities in both that Brisbane LGA and the Moreton Bay LGA. We will just have to see what happens over the next 48 hours. Of course, I always consider a lockdown and then I work through what we need to do.

At this stage, I do not think a lot is warranted. That could change but I am really, really very comforted by the fact that people do know how to respond and respond very quickly. We have seen that for the last few outbreaks.

Updated

Queensland CHO Dr Jeanette Young has given some details on the cases, including a truck driver who was infectious in community for eight days.

He had stayed at three different locations, raising concerns about transmission.

We are working through with the managers of those three facilities as to who else was in those accommodation venues while he was there, and organising quarantine for all of those people.

We are continuing to work with him as to what other sites he has been at while infectious. But there have been a number that we have already been made aware of.

That is why it is absolutely critical, please, anyone, particularly in Brisbane or that Morrison Bay region, particularly that western part of Brisbane, any symptoms at all, please come forward and get tested.

Updated

Police confirm a man has died in hotel quarantine in Queensland

Queensland police have confirmed that a man in his 50s has been found dead in hotel quarantine. They confirmed he was an Australian citizen but gave few details:

Unfortunately, today I can advise and confirm that tragically, overnight a male person in his 50s was found passed away in one of our quarantine hotels. I am not able to go into any more detail. What I will say the matter is under investigation by police. It will be referred to the coroner following that investigation and we are engaging with the coroner at the moment. I would like to acknowledge the response of the police and health staff and our other agencies and hotel staff that are working at the hotel for their response to that tragic matter.

Unfortunately I cannot comment any further on that. It will go to the coroner and we are engaging with the coroner at the moment and we are not prepared to discuss anything at this time.

Updated

Mask restrictions introduced for Brisbane and Moreton Bay council areas

Queensland health minister Yvette D’ath has just stepped up, announcing that a mask mandate will be applied in the Brisbane city council and Moreton Bay council areas.

It means residents will need to wear a mask when visiting indoor venues:

This will be in place for two weeks while we work through the risks of these cases. It also means in those two local government areas that we will be restricting access to vulnerable facilities again, so hospitals, aged care, disability facilities in those two LGAs will have restrictions immediately. This is obviously to protect the most vulnerable in our community.

Masks are being mandated in Brisbane city and Moreton Bay council areas.
Masks are being mandated in Brisbane city and Moreton Bay council areas. Photograph: Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images

Updated

New Zealand records eight new cases

New Zealand has reported eight new cases of coronavirus in the community, all in Auckland, bringing the total in the outbreak to 1,185. It is the lowest number of new daily cases since the first case of Delta was announced in mid-August.

Seven cases have been epidemiologically linked to household cases. The remaining person visited Waitakere hospital on Monday evening and has since been transferred to North Shore hospital. Health officials are working to establish a link.

Wastewater testing has shown an unexpected positive result in Tauranga. That could be down to a previous positive case shedding the virus or an undetected acute case. People in that region are being asked to get tested.

On Tuesday prime minister Jacinda Ardern announced that a further 3,000 managed isolation places will be released from 5pm NZST, for those looking to return to the country between October and December. Additional rooms will be announced in the coming weeks.

Ardern said:

The reason we stagger those releases is because some people may have urgent needs that only arise, say in October or November, and it allows people to have equal access, if those needs arise, a little closer to the time.

Aucklanders wishing to leave the city’s boundary to travel to other parts of the country – which have fewer restrictions – will be allowed to from midnight Tuesday, providing they are permanently relocating out of the city, have child-caring duties or are returning home.

Nearly 75% of eligible New Zealanders – those 12 years and older – have had one dose of the vaccine, while 42% are fully inoculated.

Updated

Australia’s Department of Health is being grilled by Labor senator Kristina Keneally on a report released on Monday by the disability royal commission which criticised the vaccine rollout for the disability sector.

Health department secretary Brendan Murphy has denied “deprioritising” the disability sector but says the focus of vaccine providers was turned to residential aged care because it was the area of “significantly greater risk”:

We definitely focused them on residential aged care as their major area of focus until the residential aged care was completed, because there was a strong priority to complete them by winter, but we continued to provide access to residential disability, but not at the same rate as aged care and we have acknowledged that.

Residential aged care is the single highest-risk setting and every experience of every country around the world has shown that.

But Murphy said he would not comment on the findings of the royal commission’s report as it was a draft report and the government was yet to be sent a copy.

Updated

We’re expecting a more detailed update from Queensland health officials in about eight minutes.

Updated

So just on the confusion surrounding whether the additional Victorian case numbers were to be added on to previous days’ numbers or if they were being counted in today’s numbers, my colleague Josh Nicholas has cleared it up:

Updated

Melbourne’s Tullamarine Freeway looks a bit jammed up amid reports of drivers protesting:

Updated

Annastacia Palaszczuk says restrictions (not a lockdown) for the Brisbane and Moreton Bay region will be announced by the chief health officer, Jeannette Young, later this morning. These will include measures at aged care centres, prisons and in disability settings:

There’s no need to panic because Queenslanders have been doing the right thing, especially in the south-east, but what Dr Young has said we’ll be doing, and she’ll give more details, is that we want it go back to people wearing their masks indoors.

We’ve been here before. I know that south-east Queenslanders will rise to this challenge once again.

The Brisbane central business district from Kangaroo Point
The Brisbane central business district from Kangaroo Point. Photograph: Darren England/EPA

Updated

So the Queensland premier had a short update there, saying that a more comprehensive update will come from health officials in about 40 minutes.

Updated

Queensland premier says 'no need to panic' but indoor masks to be required in Brisbane

Annastacia Palaszczuk says there is “no need to panic” but some of the new cases are concerning. Mask rules will be tightened for indoor areas in the Brisbane and Moreton Bay LGAs.

Of the four cases in the community:

  • Two are a husband and wife from Eatons Hill. The husband is fully vaccinated and works at an aviation training facility. He was infectious in the community for three days.
  • The third case, which is the most concerning, is a truck driver who was living in shared accommodation and has been infectious in the community for about a week. Police are speaking to this man to gain more information about his movements.
  • This fourth case is a person who completed their full 14 days’ hotel quarantine but then tested positive after leaving.

Updated

Queensland has recorded six new cases of Covid-19, including four people who had been in the community.

Updated

Queensland records six new Covid cases, four in the community

Queensland’s premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has just stepped up and announced that the state has recorded six new cases today.

She said more details would come later today.

Updated

In addition to all the press conferences already listed, we have Anthony Albanese speaking to reporters at 11.45am.

Here they all are:

  • Queensland Covid update one – 9.45am
  • Queensland Covid update two – 10.30am
  • Federal health update – 10.45am
  • NSW Covid update – 11am
  • Victoria Covid update – unknown
  • Labor leader update – 11.45am

We have a busy morning ahead.

Updated

An odd little detail in Victoria’s Covid update was that the health department has added 140 new cases to yesterday’s numbers and nine to Sunday’s tally because they “became aware that a number of COVID-19 test results were incorrectly recorded by a third-party software vendor supporting a private vendor”.

That means Victoria recorded more cases than NSW yesterday.

Updated

And here is a graph of Victoria’s Covid case numbers and the trend in this outbreak. A worrying increase:

Updated

Victoria records 867 Covid cases and four deaths

We have case numbers and it isn’t good news. Victoria has recorded 867 new cases and four deaths.

The number of new cases in Victoria is higher than the number recorded in New South Wales yesterday.

Updated

So, case numbers out of Victoria are delayed today (we normally have them by now), and I’m not sure why. I hope it’s just because the news is so good, everyone in health got too excited and forgot to post them. One can only hope?

Oh, and we’ll also have a federal health update from Greg Hunt at 10.45am.

Updated

We have two Queensland press conferences to look forward to this morning:

Unsure why there are two, but we’ll be blogging them both.

Gladys Berejiklian is then asked about international travel and whether she’d welcome being the entry and exit point for international arrivals come December, considering that some states aren’t as keen on international arrivals yet:

I would welcome that. I think every state needs to do their bit for the country. Our contribution in New South Wales will be to welcome home Australians.

If other state premiers aren’t inclined to do that. I’m more than happy to welcome home Australians. Australians have been separated from their loved ones for too long. I would be more than happy to welcome home Australians, fully vaccinated Australians will be able to quarantine at home in NSW.

And obviously every other state premier will have their decisions around what they’ll do. We make sure they get safely on a flight back to their home state. What happens after that is a matter for their state premier. If you’re fully vaccinated with a vaccine our authorities deem to be effective and safe, you’ll be able to quarantine at home. We’re going through the pilot as we speak.

But the hotel quarantine system for returning Australians is past its use-by date. If you’re fully vaccinated, you should be able to quarantine at home.

Sydney international airport
Sydney international airport. Photograph: Joel Carrett/AAP

Updated

Next up on the ABC breakfast show is NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian (it’s a big morning on News Breakfast), who is asked what she thinks of the criticisms of her government’s plan to allow unvaccinated people all freedoms from December.

Here’s what she had to say:

No matter what decision I announced yesterday, I would’ve been criticised. The Doherty report recommended from 80% unvaccinated people participate in society. We said no, we’re going harder and more conservative. I anticipate in a couple of weeks’ time, we’ll have at least 90% of our adult population with a first dose. That’s outstanding.

When you sign up for the first dose, you’re going to sign up for the second one. I’m predicting New South Wales will have some of the highest vaccination rates in the world. We were constrained by supply, but as soon as we get that extra supply, our residents have come forward, wanting to get vaccinated.

If you look at the fact when the outbreak first start in NSW we had about 19% on average first dose vaccination rates, now they’re up over 90% in many localities and that’s outstanding. I’m confident that we’ll be one of the most vaccinated jurisdictions in the world by the time we fully open.

I would rather be open and transparent and tell businesses and individuals exactly what to expect than not. Once government makes a decision, I think it’s really important to convey that to the community. I’m happy to wear the criticism. Every single decision we have taken, you get criticised.

Gladys Berejiklian
NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian. Photograph: Joel Carrett/EPA

Updated

Also, caught between all that was the announcement that Victoria will pass the 80% first dose mark today.

Pressed again on the differences taken by his government and the NSW government, the Victorian premier says he doesn’t want to rush things.

With NSW setting dates for a return to hairdressers, theatres and restaurants, pressure is growing on Daniel Andrews to similarly back a more detailed plan, one deemed less “cautious”.

This is what he had to say:

We’re taking an approach that’s based on public health advice. That’s what has got us to this point. That’s what we’ll continue to see, yes, more people in hospital, but less than otherwise would be the case.

It’s a very precious things, our health system, and we need to be careful to manage those additional patients. I’m not going to give to our nurses a fight they can’t win. It will be very tough for them in the weeks and months ahead.

We need to protect our ICU capacity, it’s not about beds and ventilators, we have enough of those. What we don’t have is a workforce that hasn’t got fatigue.

That isn’t bearing, you know, or having to deal with the cost of the last 20 months. It’s been a very different time. I’m not here to apologise for doing this cautiously and following the science. I’m here to encourage people to get vaccinated and I’m here to celebrate a really important milestone. We’ll pass 80% single dose.

That’s an amazing achievement and all Victorians who have been vaccinated or booked an appointment should be very proud of that. I will leave the comparisons with other states to others. We’ll get this done and we’ll get it done properly. I’m very positive and optimistic about the future because we can see past this now.

Updated

So Daniel Andrews was on ABC News this morning and was pressed on why his government’s reopening plan doesn’t provide the kinds of details the NSW plan has.

The premier was asked when Victorians will be able to have a drink standing up at the pub, with the presenter pointing to the NSW roadmap that provides a date for that, and Andrews essentially said they’re working on it.

He also mentioned that because NSW received “more doses”, it could better plan ahead, implying that it had given the state a head start:

We’ll get people standing and being able to have a drink without a meal as soon as we possibly can. This is staggered. It’s staged. It has to be. Because even once you get to 80%, that’s still 20 of the community not vaccinated.

Victorians are coming forward to get vaccinated, that means lockdowns will end. It’s not about endless suppression. It will be a challenging time for our nurses particularly. We’ll be there and stand with them.

We made announcements about the vaccinated economy, announcements about the return to school. All sorts of different announcements in the last week or two.

By the time we get to 70% double dosed, a few weeks away, lockdown will end, and we’ll start providing further detail about what 80% double dose looks like.

New South Wales are out in front of us because they were given additional vaccine supply. We don’t begrudge them that. It means we’ll be able to watch on and see exactly how this unfolds.

Daniel Andrews addresses the media on Monday
Victorian premier Daniel Andrews addresses the media on Monday. Photograph: James Ross/AAP

Updated

Epidemiologist calls for NRL grand final in Queensland to be delayed or cancelled

A leading epidemiologist has called for the NRL grand final to be cancelled or postponed, saying she doesn’t believe Queensland’s low vaccination rates will prevent an outbreak similar to NSW or Victoria.

The grand final is due to be played this Sunday in Brisbane, and Professor Mary-Louise McLaws told the Today show she thought it could become a super-spreader event:

They are going to have to think very fast whether or not [the grand final] should go ahead with the same number of people.

I would be surprised if they cancel it, but I personally think they should, so that they can get their vaccination rates up really high, otherwise what they are going to have is potentially an experience such as NSW and Victoria.

Only 45% of people over 16 have taken had both doses of the vaccine in Queensland.

Mary-Louise McLaws
Epidemiologist Mary-Louise McLaws. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Updated

NSW train strike disrupts rail services

The NSW rail network is being disrupted this morning as drivers strike for better pay and conditions. Commuters are expecting big delays this morning on all regional and city services, with people asked to make alternative arrangements.

From 9am, train drivers for Sydney Trains and NSW TrainLink will strike, until 1pm, as part of their ongoing industrial action. Services are expected to be affected from 7am to about 3pm.

Unions say they planned the action for weeks, especially around getting essential workers to and from work. The strike comes during negotiations for a new enterprise agreement, where the parties remain at loggerheads over pay and safety issues.

Rail, Tram and Bus Union NSW secretary Alex Claassens told AAP there could be more industrial action in the next month if the government continued to workers’ demands.

A Sydney train
Sydney trains will be out of action from 9am on Tuesday as drivers go on strike. Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAP

Updated

NSW deputy premier John Barilaro was on Sunrise earlier this morning getting grilled about the roadmap for the unvaccinated, a sticking point from yesterday’s press conference.

Barilaro was asked if giving unvaccinated people full freedoms from December was essentially encouraging them to avoid getting the jab until then.

This was what the deputy premier had to say:

We live in a time of anxiety and fear. We are leading into the Christmas period and leading into a time where people reunite and it is only fair we can communicate what the plan will look like.

We are confident we’ll be close to 90% vaccination in the state [by the end of the year].

Being honest is important. I believe that people will not be holding back vaccination just because they can think they can get away until December 1. There will always be those that won’t get vaccinated.

John Barilaro
NSW deputy premier John Barilaro. Photograph: Joel Carrett/AAP

Updated

So, just building on the mystery case in Brisbane, Queensland Health have released a public health alert for locations in Eatons Hill, Aspley and Albany Creek in Brisbane’s north and Rocklea.

Some of the locations include Seats ‘R’ Us in Rocklea and Mother Duck childcare centre and kindergarten at Eatons Hill.

Investigations are ongoing into the source of the case.

Good morning, Mostafa Rachwani with you this morning to take you through this morning’s news.

We start in Queensland, where a mystery Covid case appearing overnight has left authorities scrambling. The cases, an aviation worker in his 30s, has no recent history of overseas or interstate travel, with the source of his infection still unknown.

It has meant the state’s health department has listed a raft of new exposure sites, and we expect a full update from them later today.

It comes after NSW recorded 787 cases yesterday (although Covid testing numbers were also down), with hopes the state can continue to see case numbers dropping. It also comes after NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian yesterday outlined the state’s roadmap out of lockdown, marking 11 October as the beginning of the three-stage reopening plan.

This morning Yass Valley will wake up out of lockdown, after stay-at-home orders were lifted as scheduled. Cowra, in the state’s central west, will remain in lockdown though, due to ongoing transmission.

There are also eyes on Victoria’s case numbers, after they fell yesterday as well, with hopes the restrictions and vaccination efforts have taken effect.

As always, we will bring you all the press conferences as they come, and everything else swirling around today.

Updated

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