What we learned Wednesday 13 January 2021
With that, we’ll be closing the blog for today. Here is everything that happened:
- Chief medical officer Paul Kelly defended Australia’s vaccination strategy amid concerns about the efficacy of the AstraZeneca vaccine compared with the Pfizer and other alternatives, declaring the AstraZeneca jab will save lives and is effective in preventing severe illness from Covid-19. “We’ve got what we’ve got and we’ve got the AstraZeneca,” he said.
- Google has admitted to a trial removing some Australian news results from searches, in a move interpreted by the media industry as a show of force in bargaining with the Australian government.
- Queensland health authorities ordered hundreds of returned travellers and hotel staff to restart their quarantine period over fears the UK Covid variant strain has spread within Brisbane’s Hotel Grand Chancellor. Six cases of Covid-19 have been recorded among people who are in isolation on the seventh floor of the hotel.
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New South Wales health authorities has also issued an alert for the Hotel Grand Chancellor after it learned returned travellers who quarantined there have travelled on to NSW. The state announced one new locally-acquired case of Covid-19 on Wednesday, as leaders urged residents to present for testing.
- Paul Kelly also slapped down government MP Craig Kelly for giving prominence to views about coronavirus that are “not scientifically based”. The CMO’s rejection of the Coalition politician’s claims - which included touting ivermectin as a coronavirus treatment and likening mandatory mask use to child abuse - follow acting prime minister Michael McCormack’s defence that “facts are sometimes contentious”.
Google removing Australian news from searches
Google has admitted to a trial removing some Australian news results from searches, in a move interpreted by the media industry as a show of force in bargaining with the Australian government.
The Australian government is attempting to impose a new code on internet giants including Google and Facebook that would force them to negotiate a fair payment with news organisations for using their content.
The move, a world first, has been strenuously resisted in messages to the search engine’s users and a warning from Facebook it will block Australians from sharing news if the plan proceeds.
On Wednesday the Australian Financial Review first reported that Google had tweaked its search and news algorithm to bury links from commercial Australian media outlets for some users.
Anecdotal evidence from readers of Guardian Australia appears to confirm the trial.
A Google spokesperson said:
Every year we conduct tens of thousands of experiments in Google Search. We’re currently running a few experiments that will each reach about 1% of Google Search users in Australia to measure the impacts of news businesses and Google Search on each other. In 2018, the value we provided to publishers through referral traffic alone was estimated at $218 million dollars.
These experiments will conclude by early February.
As we said last week, we remain committed to getting to a workable Code and look forward to working with the Senate Committee, policymakers, and publishers to achieve an outcome that’s fair for everyone, in the interests of all Australians.”
NSW health issues alert for anyone who has stayed at Grand Chancellor to get tested and isolate
New South Wales health authorities have issued an alert for anyone who has been at Brisbane’s Hotel Grand Chancellor to immediately get test and isolate for 14 days.
The alert comes was issued because the Queensland government notified NSW Health “there were NSW people staying at the hotel who have since returned to NSW”.
A NSW Health statement said:
NSW Health is tonight calling on anyone who has been at the Hotel Grand Chancellor in Brisbane since 30 December, either as a returned traveler or as a staff member, to immediately get tested and isolate for 14 days after they were last at the hotel regardless of their test result.
Six cases of the Covid-19 variant of concern have now been linked to the hotel. This variant is known to spread more easily from person to person than other strains of the Covid-19 virus.
The hotel is believed to have been used for returned travellers only.
NSW Health is working with Queensland Health to identify these people so our contact tracers can provide public health advice and updated information as it becomes available.”
Updated
South Australia recorded no new locally-acquired Covid-19 cases in the most recent reporting day. However two returned international travellers tested positive to Covid-19 while in hotel quarantine.
Western Australia also recorded no new locally-acquired cases in the same period. The state recorded one new case in a returned overseas traveller who tested positive while in hotel quarantine.
The Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases (ASID), the Australasian College for Infection Prevention and Control (ACIPC), and the Public Health Association of Australia (PHAA) have criticised the concerns raised about Australia’s reliance on the AstraZeneca vaccine in its vaccination strategy.
The organisations said concerns about the ability of any vaccines to create herd immunity were not justified at this stage of the process.
ASID immediate past president Prof Josh Davis, ACIPC president Assoc Prof Philip Russo, and PHAA president Prof Tarun Weeramanthri released a statement that said “the current debate over the efficacy of the AstraZeneca vaccine could undermine public trust in the country’s vaccination plan”.
Supplies of Covid-19 vaccines are limited due to the worldwide demand and the logistics of vaccinating the entire adult population is huge, therefore priority populations will be vaccinated first.
It is important to get as many people vaccinated as possible in the shortest possible time and it would not be appropriate to withhold the AstraZeneca vaccine while waiting for supplies of a more efficacious one.
The government has access to expert advice and the final strategy is likely to involve the use of multiple vaccines, which will be the approach most countries will take.
The public should have confidence in the approach the government is taking to providing Covid-19 vaccines in Australia.”
Updated
The challenge is to make sure that the community knows where to get good health information and knows how to recognise crackpot ideas and separate them from good health advice from reputable sources. https://t.co/3BMEKYaJxE @amapresident
— AMA Media (@ama_media) January 13, 2021
Labor has told the Guardian it will seek “commonsense” changes to the migration act to end a requirement that some visa applicants leave Australia temporarily before they can receive final approval.
Currently, the migration act requires that applicants for some permanent visa categories be outside Australia when their case is decided.
For those who are already in the country, this forces them to fly abroad for a short period, obtain the final visa approval, and then return.
That is causing understandable concern during the middle of a pandemic and the existing strain on quarantine places.
Late last year, the then immigration minister, Alan Tudge, bowed to pressure and announced he would absolve those applying for partner visas from having to be offshore to have them granted.
But other visa types – such as parental visas, for example – will not have such a concession.
The numbers of people placed in this situation are small. But Labor says it is “madness” to continue to require applicants go offshore to receive their visas.
Labor MP Julian Hill plans to move a private member’s bill granting the minister the temporary power to issue any visa onshore during the pandemic.
“Forcing people to fly overseas and back again just so their visa can be granted is madness in the middle of a global pandemic,” Hill said.
Updated
South Australia to lift hard border to regional NSW
South Australia is lifting its hard border closure to regional New South Wales.
The change will come into effect from 12:01am on Thursday.
The announcement was made on Wednesday afternoon, as South Australia recorded no new locally-acquired cases in the previous reporting day.
Updated
The operator of Sydney’s Luna Park has been fined $5,000 after a police investigation found a New Year’s Eve event breached legal gathering limits.
Officers launched an investigation into the New Year’s Eve party “after receiving mobile phone footage of a large crowd gathered at the Milsons Point venue”.
A New South Wales police statement said that “following inquiries with the venue and a review of further footage, the company secretary of the amusement park was issued a $5,000” penalty infringement notice for failing to comply with the public health order.
NSW police are urging the community to contact Crime Stoppers to report suspected breaches of the gathering limits and public health orders related to coronavirus.
Updated
'Not scientifically based': Paul Kelly slaps down Liberal MP
The chief medical officer, Paul Kelly, has rejected unfounded claims about Covid-19 treatments made by Liberal MP Craig Kelly.
Asked about Kelly’s interest in anti-parasitic drug ivermectin, the CMO said it is useful for treating river blindness but there “is no evidence at the moment that it has any benefit or use in the prevention or treatment of Covid-19”.
Asked if he is frustrated by other claims (including likening masks to child abuse), the CMO said:
First, [Craig Kelly is] no relation I can absolutely guarantee that. He needs to decide what is the appropriate thing for a member of parliament to comment on.
I won’t talk further about it – it gives prominence to views that I just don’t agree with and are not scientifically based.”
Updated
Chief medical officer Paul Kelly has said he can’t explain why Australia hasn’t been able to secure more Pfizer vaccines while other countries have been ordering extra doses.
Kelly said:
I don’t have an answer to that.
We’re in virtually constant discussion with Pfizer. If there were more doses available to us then we would look into whether that was a feasible option for us to get more. So far that’s not the case.”
The press conference has ended.
Paul Kelly was repeatedly asked about government MP Craig Kelly’s recent statements that likened mandatory mask use to child abuse and touted unproven Covid-19 treatments.
The chief medical officer initially said:
In terms of what backbenchers from one side of parliament or the other say, that’s a matter for them.
Pushed on Craig Kelly in the next question, the CMO said:
He needs to decide what is the appropriate thing for a member of parliament to be commenting on. I’m not going to talk further about this. Because it just gives prominence to views I don’t agree with.”
The CMO also clarified that the MP whose last name he shares “is no relation” of his. “I can absolutely guarantee that.”
Updated
Guardian Australia’s Paul Karp asks chief medical officer Paul Kelly if there could be a second run of the Pfizer vaccine later in the vaccination program for those who first had the AstraZeneca jab.
Kelly said:
We’re embarking on a long-term journey in relation to vaccination against Covid. We don’t have any information about how long any of the vaccines last in terms of immunity.
The main reason for that is they’re brand new vaccines and we don’t have the follow-up data in relation to that. So I don’t know how long these will last, any of the vaccines we have in our portfolio.
There’s also no evidence that you cannot ... follow up with any of the other vaccines next year, once they become available.”
Updated
Paul Kelly is asked “have we backed the only horse we could” in securing the AstraZeneca vaccine.
We have backed many horses. We have several eggs in the basket. We have, from the beginning, looked for a diversified portfolio of vaccines. We chose one mRNA vaccine on the basis of the advice from the committee, that was the Pfizer vaccine in the mRNA group.”
Kelly is asked, if he had unlimited access to the Pfizer vaccine, would he be happy having that as a primary vaccine for all Australians.
Kelly said it’s pointless having a hypothetical debate, and adds:
We’ve got what we’ve got and we’ve got the AstraZeneca and it’s effective enough particularly for severe illness.”
Paul Kelly has suggested the Australian government has unsuccessfully tried to order the Moderna vaccine.
Kelly said:
It [the Moderna vaccine] is a very promising candidate ... [but] a contract takes two parties to sign.
We have continued conversations with Moderna. But it needs their agreement to sign such a contract. I will leave it there. A lot of these issues are commercial in confidence and I can’t really talk to them.
The government has also had issues with securing the Johnson and Johnson vaccine. Kelly said the company has applied for a provisional designation and is going through the pathway for approval in Australia.
In terms of contracts of pre-purchasing agreements, I’m not at liberty to talk in detail. There were issues we were not able to agree on with Johnson and Johnson, mainly in their court.”
Updated
Chief medical officer Paul Kelly is responding to concerns about the efficacy of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
He said “some people have been taking particular parts” of an article about AstraZeneca’s interim results “and not reading the whole article”.
He said the AZ vaccine will be useful because it’s being made in Australia and “we don’t need to queue for that”. He also said “it is very effective against severe illness” and that it “will save lives”.
I am worried, and worried about the selective use of the data that we have, those interim results from particular studies back in November.
So people should be confident about safety, being our first priority, and efficacy being the second.
The World Health Organization, this was in agreement among experts, they wanted all Covid vaccines to exceed 50%.
64%, 73%, 95%, those are all the percentages (of the Astra Zeneca, Pfizer and Moderna vaccines).
They’re all good at protecting against severe illness and death. That’s why I say that lives will be saved by the AstraZeneca vaccine, I have no doubt about it.”
He said the Pfizer vaccine will likely be the first vaccine to gain TGA approval.
“We expect that very soon within the next few weeks,” Kelly said.
Updated
Sydney’s northern beaches is no longer considered a Covid-19 hotspot by the commonwealth.
Chief medical officer Paul Kelly announced the revocation of the hotspot at a press conference on Wednesday afternoon. The hotspot definition mostly relates to how the commonwealth provides support to the outbreak.
Kelly said Brisbane is still considered a hotspot, out of an abundance of caution, because of the cases linked to a quarantine hotel.
Updated
Guardian Australia understands the federal government will be holding briefings in the next 24 hours with various stakeholders, health professionals and researchers to explain Australia’s various vaccine candidates, the science behind them, and to clear up any misinformation.
But whether any of the vaccines, including the Pfizer vaccine or the Novavax vaccine, can prevent disease transmission, and the impact of any of these vaccines on herd immunity, is still unknown. Australia will also be able to learn from data from the UK and US, where the situation is more dire and the vaccines are being rolled out ahead of the full data from pharmaceutical companies being provided.
There have also been questions asked about why Australia has not secured a deal to get the Moderna vaccine, which like the Pfizer vaccine is highly effective and is an mRNA vaccine.
But it is important to note that Australia is a member of the Covax Facility, which will allow more vaccine doses and other vaccines to be purchased as they become available, including the Moderna vaccine. Through Covax Australia has access to an additional 25m vaccine doses, and Moderna is a part of that.
mRNA is a new technology, and the mRNA vaccines require cold-chain storage at extremely low temperatures. Australia already has the facilities in Australia to manufacture the AstraZeneca vaccine, whereas the technology is not yet in place to mass produce mRNA vaccines in Australia. So another benefit to securing a deal with AstraZeneca will be the fast roll-out and onshore manufacturing.
Updated
Australia remains one of the world’s hotspots for deforestation, according to a new report by WWF, which finds an area six times the size of Tasmania has been cleared globally since 2004.
The analysis identifies 24 “deforestation fronts” worldwide where a total of 43 million hectares of forest was destroyed in the period from 2004 until 2017.
Australia is the only country in the developed world to appear on the list, with eastern Australia named alongside Colombia, Peru, Laos and Mozambique as locations with “medium” rates of deforestation.
The countries with high rates of deforestation include Brazil, Bolivia, Madagascar and Borneo.
The report warns that nearly half of the standing forests in the 24 deforestation fronts have suffered some type of fragmentation and trends suggest clearing will persist unless countries act to protect them.
It expands on a 2015 report by WWF which named 11 hotspots, with eastern Australia also appearing on that list.
In the first analysis, NSW and Queensland were singled out for high rates of clearing, but the new report identifies further areas of concern in Victoria and Tasmania.
“Land-clearing rates rocketed after the axing of restrictions in Queensland and NSW placing eastern Australia alongside the most infamous places in the world for forest destruction,” WWF-Australia conservation scientist Martin Taylor said.
Updated
The head of a Melbourne childcare centre which shut after a child tested positive to Covid-19 two days after visiting the facility has said the test result was a false positive, the Age reports.
Lynda Kelly, the managing director of Armidale’s Explorers Early learning Centre, said the child, who tested positive to a rapid coronavirus when landing in Israel on Sunday morning, has now returned a negative test.
In an update sent to families, Kelly said the childcare centre should reopen on Thursday.
The facility closed for cleaning and contact tracing on Monday.
Updated
Thanks Matilda for bringing us the latest news developments this morning.
I’m Elias Visontay, and I’ll be taking you through the next part of the afternoon.
If you see anything you think I should be aware of, you can contact me via email at elias.visontay@theguardian.com or via Twitter @EliasVisontay.
A man has been charged after a disagreement over masks in Sydney allegedly resulted in a man being stabbed.
NSW police have just issued this statement:
Police have been told the 25-year-old man, a woman and two children were at the centre on George Street, Windsor, when the woman was asked by a security guard to put on a mask about 8.20pm (Tuesday 12 January).
A short time later, the man allegedly approached the security guard – a 59-year-old man – and pushed him before punching him a number of times.
During this time, a member of the public – a 53-year-old man – intervened and a physical fight ensued, before the younger man allegedly produced a knife and stabbed the older man in the leg.”
Police say a customer and security guard restrained the man while officers arrived.
The man was arrested after a short struggle and charged with being armed with intent to commit an indictable offence, causing an affray, and resisting a police officer in the execution of duty.
He has been refused bail and will appear in Penrith local court today.
Updated
A little more from the Victorian press conference earlier this morning.
Victorian Minister Luke Donnellan on the state's border restrictions: "What may appear to be brutal and uncaring and the like is very much done with the interests of the Victorian public at heart to ensure we don't have another situation where we have to lockdown."
— Benita Kolovos 🐯 (@benitakolovos) January 12, 2021
Wednesday, 13 January – coronavirus cases in Queensland:
— Annastacia Palaszczuk (@AnnastaciaMP) January 12, 2021
• 0 new locally acquired cases
• 2 overseas acquired cases
• 26 active cases
• 1,283 total cases
• 1,642,210 tests conducted
Sadly, six Queenslanders with COVID-19 have died. 1,245 patients have recovered.#covid19 pic.twitter.com/j1JKy1ibND
Gosh, there are a lot of hotspots to keep up with nowadays. Good thing here at the Guardian we have you covered.
Here you can find all the exposure sites in NSW:
You are in Queensland you say? Never fear, here if your hotspots:
Victoria? No problem. Your hotspots can be found here.
Firefighters have saved more than 80 homes after battling through the night to contain a bushfire in Perth’s southern suburbs, reports AAP:
An emergency warning was issued for parts of Atwell, Aubin Grove and Banjup on Tuesday, with some residents told it was too late to leave.
The blaze has since been brought under control and no longer poses a threat to lives and homes.
All roads are now open and more than 80 homes have been saved. The cause of the fire was unknown, the Department of Fire and Emergency Services said on Wednesday.
A separate bushfire in nearby Bibra Lake was extinguished overnight after threatening the Adventure World theme park and Cockburn Ice Arena.
Both venues have been cleared to reopen on Wednesday.
Updated
The Victorian government is funding research into how Covid-19 has changed the risk and intensity of family violence and sexual assault in the state.
Details about the research, which is set to start in March, were included in a government tender released last month.
The research will be funded by Family Safety Victoria (FSV), an office of the Department of Health and Human Services, and will require a partnership between a university and a service provider.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted the prevalence and patterns of family violence and has rapidly transformed how government and services respond to family violence and sexual assault,” FSV says in the tender.
“The organisation is looking to commission research into the changes to drivers, presentation, risk and intensity of family violence and sexual assault in Victoria during and in recovery from the pandemic, as well as the impacts of service innovations and changes to responses for family violence and sexual assault services and clients.”
FSV says it expects multiple research projects will be funded by the tender, and that the collaboration between providers and universities will inform a broader Victorian family violence research program.
Updated
The Consumers Health Forum has welcomed the Australian Medical Association’s position statement on health literacy as important recognition of the need for strong public support for people to have access to valid health information.
Yesterday, the AMA urged political leaders to be clear in their support of science and public health, describing some of the comments by politicians in recent days as “torching the foundation of community health and science”.
The CHF is the national peak body representing the interests of Australian healthcare consumers and its CEO, Leanne Wells, said on Wednesday:
In the internet era when so much good and bad information floods people’s screens, there is a need for a healthy information culture to overcome fake health news.
We agree with the AMA that doctors, and health systems, have a vital role to play in improving health literacy by communicating effectively and sensitively with patients, encouraging discussion, and providing information that is understandable and relevant.
Doctors can do more in this regard. CHF’s recent Australia’s Health Panel Drop the Jargon survey found that a lack of time in health appointments, was a major barrier to understanding in health care.
Health literacy is vital to consumers’ capacity to manage and feel in control of their health care. As one of the blueprint authors said, right now, up to 60% of Australians appear to lack the capacity to access, understand, appraise and use crucial information to make health-related decisions.”
The Australian Government Chief Medical Officer, Professor Paul Kelly, is providing an update on COVID-19 at 2:30pm #auspol #COVID19Aus
— Political Alert (@political_alert) January 13, 2021
The Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk in her press conference seemed to allude to speaking to national cabinet about hotel quarantine, leading to speculation that she may wish to stop accepting returned travellers altogether.
The NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, has been asked about this at her press event.
At the end of the day, these are decisions that the commonwealth government has to actually take ...
But I’ll say this – that whilst there’s always a risk when you’re returning Australians back to our shores, it would be, I think, a terrible blow if we stopped any Australians coming back home. I don’t want to see that.
It’s a blow from a human compassionate perspective but also from an economic perspective. Because every planeload that brings people to our port also brings urgent freight that we need, important freight that we need...
I think it’s unfair and unrealistic to suggest that we’re just going to completely close our borders to Australians.
Updated
NSW 'mopping up' period to last up to a month
Anyone else really sick of the term “mopping up”. Well if so, you are out of luck in this press conference.
Chant has been asked exactly how long this “mopping up” period is going to last, where a trickle of locally acquired cases (most from close contacts already isolating) keep appearing.
Chant:
In my view, it would take at least three, maybe four weeks. And so, I need the community to be on track with us.
Reporter:
Do we take from that that there’ll be no easing of restrictions over the next three to four weeks?
Chant:
We continue to monitor the situation. I’m giving you my honest assessment. As an epidemiologist we like to see around two incubation periods before we assess that we are free of the disease.
Updated
So while the Mount Druitt hospital case has been genomically linked to the Berala cluster, we still don’t know exactly how that man is linked to the other infected people.
Chant was asked if this means there might be undetected infected people still out in the community.
If we cannot readily link a case with a direct crossover with an infectious case it means we are potentially missing chains of transmission. That is why at the moment we are doing a lot of what we call “upstream”, contact tracing and that’s looking at what could have infected this person. That gives us other lines of inquiry where we might find a crossover to that person to other cases of known contacts.
Chant said there has also been viral fragments detected in wastewater.
Overnight, we’ve also had a detection at the West Hornsby treatment plant and this catchment takes in Glenorie, Pennant Hills, Castle Hill, Hornsby and Normanhurst and West Pennant Hills.
We are aware of some cases in that catchment, but as a precaution, we again draw this to the attention of the community and ask you to again reflect on if you have the most minimal of symptoms, please just get a test as we go through this very critical response.
Updated
Berejiklian says she expects the UK variant of Covid-19 to become dominant in Australia’s (rather sparse) cases.
I just think we need to assume that these variant strains are going to become the dominant strain and whilst we have outstanding quarantine systems in Australia throughout most of the states, we can’t be assured that that strain won’t seep out into the community.
That’s why I strongly welcome the pause that we’ll be taking in the number of people we’re welcoming back home from the next month. So from January 15 to February 15, New South Wales will be halving the number of people that come down.
New South Wales has a much higher tolerance in relation to border matters than other states. We have confidence in our system. If there is a concern about a particular geographic region around Australia, we’ve still maintained all of our borders but we just have extra rules in place for when people come to New South Wales from those areas. I have confidence in our health system in New South Wales.
Chant has given a bit of an update on the Mount Druitt hospital cases, which have now been genomically linked to the Berala cluster.
In terms of the Mount Druitt Covid case that was discussed at the press conference a few days ago, results of the genomic testing on the case diagnosed with Covid after presenting to the emergency department on Saturday were received yesterday and the results have shown that this case is linked to the Berala cluster.
But despite the fact that we have that genomic linkage with the Berala cluster, we have not identified a point where that person crossed over with anyone known to have Covid. It means we are currently testing widely around what we call “upstream contacts”, a broad net, to attempt to find any missing link in those chains of transmission.
Updated
NSW also recorded six cases from returned overseas travellers chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant says.
Testing has also ramped up again in NSW after the number of testes dropped below 15,000 yesterday. Over the last 24 hours, 20,664 tests were conducted.
Updated
NSW records one new local case
NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian is giving update now:
Pleasingly, overnight we had one case of community transmission, it was a child in a household of existing cases.
And the couple from Mount Druitt has been linked to the Berala cluster. We haven’t identified the source but the genomic testing has linked them to the Berala cluster. Dr Chant will have more on that front.
We have to stay on the high alert we have been in the last few weeks. We are definitely in the mop-up stage.
Updated
Palaszczuk said she will be discussing the new strain with other state leaders.
We’re learning more and more about this virus every day and it is a completely new strain, so it is highly infectious and I just think everybody in Australia needs to be aware that things are not as normal as they were under Covid. It’s really stepped up to that next level.
I know Dr Young will be briefing AHPPC today and following that, I’d like to talk to my colleagues as well, just to, you know, reiterate that this is of concern. It is of national concern, not just to Queensland, but everywhere else.
So the first good step is that the number of arrivals have been decreased, but also to its highly contagious, the fact that all of these six people were on the 7th floor. How did it get transmitted? Was it in the air conditioning? Was it movement? Was it picking up something? We just don’t know those answers yet.
The investigation will go through that and we don’t know enough about this particular strain of the virus either, so we are dealing with something that is incredibly complex but there is no need for community concern.
Updated
OK, so here is the list of new Covid-19 expose sites that Young just listed
- Woolworths Calum Vale North between 11:00am and midday on 3 January
- Coles Sunnybank Hills shopping town between 7:30am and 8:00am on 5 January
- Nextra Sunnybank Hills newsagent between 8am and 8:15am on 5 January
- Bunnings Warehouse Acacia Ridge between 2pm and 2:40pm on 5 January
- Sunnybank Cellars, Sunnybank Hills between 2:05pm and 2:15pm on 6 January
- Anyone who visited the Grand Chancellor from 30 December onwards.
Young says people who have visited these locations must come forward for testing (and possibly isolate).
Updated
Queensland chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young is speaking now:
I think the safest thing to do is to move all of the guests out of that hotel to other hotels immediately. So that has now started and will happen today. So all of those 129 remaining people in that hotel will move, will get tested and will stay in quarantine for 14 days unless we find out what the link is.
So far, it’s floor 7, so we’re going to be very, very careful about floor 7, of course, and see whether that’s where it spread and the rest of the hotel is fine, but we don’t know, so we’re taking a really cautious approach, as we always do here in Queensland. Given that the earliest there could have been any spread from that gentleman from the UK is when he arrived into Australia, into Brisbane, on 30 December, we’re using that as a point going back to.
So anyone who has been in that hotel since that time, 30 December, onwards, whether they be staff, ADF, police, or Health or any of the guests, and services workers, maritime workers, we’re asking that all of those people immediately get tested and go into quarantine for 14 days from when they left the hotel.
So here is Queensland Health’s break down of those six cases at the Grand Chancellor Hotel.
- A man in his thirties who arrived from the UK on December 30.
- His partner – a woman in her thirties who arrived from the UK on December 30.(They shared a room)
- A hotel cleaner in her twenties.
- Her partner – a man in his twenties.
- A man in his forties who arrived from Lebanon on January 1.
- His daughter – a woman in her twenties, who arrived on January 1.
Hundreds of Queensland quarantine guest will have to restart their isolation
After a cluster of the highly contagious UK variant of the coronavirus was discovered at the Grand Chancellor quarantine hotel, Palaszczuk says all those in the hotel will have to restart their quarantine period.
The remaining 129 guests are going to be moved to other hotels and they will be tested. They will not be charged for their time at the Grand Chancellor or in the hotels that they are going to be moved tomorrow.
Two hundred and twenty-six people who worked in the hotel since December 30 are going to be contacted and they will go into quarantine and get tested. Once again – precautionary.
Two hundred and fifty quarantined guests who have left the hotel since December 30 are now currently being contacted. They will be quarantined and tested. Once again, precautionary. No more guests have gone into the hotel since the variant was discovered on January 7.
She says Australia needs to reassess its hotel quarantine system.
I think we need to immediately look at the way in which we are handling people coming into the country, international arrivals, and also, too, looking at the quarantine hotels that they are going into.
Of course, we have to put in addition precautions and we are doing that immediately, but what we are dealing with here is something that we’ve never had to deal with before. When we were dealing with the Covid, we knew what we were dealing with over a period of time, but now this is a new, highly infectious, strain. We do not want to see this getting out into the community and that’s why we have taken these precautionary steps today.
Updated
No new local cases in Queensland
Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is speaking now:
In some good news overnight, we only have two new cases and both of these are in hotel quarantine so we’re not worried about these cases. We have 26 active cases and, look, phenomenally, over the last 24 hours, we have had 20,615 tests done.
But, Palaszczuk says there are now six cases of the highly contagious UK variant in the state.
The genomic testing has now linked six cases of the highly infectious UK variant of COVID. These are the UK traveller and his partner, the hotel cleaner and her partner, and the man and his daughter from Lebanon who we told you about yesterday.
So all six have a connection to the Grand Chancellor hotel and at this stage we want to also say that the Grand Chancellor has not had any issues by taking COVID people since September and they’ve cooperated entirely with the health authorities, but we are now concerned about this cluster.
So both groups of these overseas arrivals stayed on the same floor of the hotel at different times but not in neighbouring rooms. So there is no need for the public to be concerned, but we are going to take some immediate actions as a precaution
Updated
Professor Lyn Gilbert is an infectious disease physician and clinical microbiologist who also has a master’s degree in bioethics. She is also the chair of the Infection Control Expert Group, which provides independent and evidence-based advice to the federal government.
I spoke to Prof Gilbert this morning about the comments in media reports today that the Astra Zeneca vaccine roll-out should be halted in Australia, due to concerns about its ability to help the population achieve herd immunity. She told me:
“I am concerned about this new controversy because of the potential effects on public confidence in Covid-19 vaccination and vaccination in general, and also because I think it is misguided because it is based on:
a) Too little information about efficacy and duration of protection or the ability of any of the vaccines to prevent transmission.
b) An assumption that there will be unlimited availability of what are seen to be the most efficacious vaccines (currently mRNA vaccines such as the Pfizer vaccine) for everyone and;
c) An unrealistic expectation that elimination/eradication of SARS-CoV-2 is possible.
“To address each of these points:
a) Natural Covid-19 infection apparently does not always provide solid immunity and it’s unlikely that even a two-dose course of the most efficacious vaccines will do so either, and we simply do not know how long immunity will last. We also still do not know how effective a full course of vaccines, such as Astra Zeneca, will be. We also have little information about the effect of vaccination on transmission – it will almost certainly reduce it, by reducing viral load, but may also allow it to continue and produce mild or asymptomatic infection which will be more difficult to detect.
b) Meanwhile there is a raging pandemic that is claiming thousands of lives worldwide but very few in Australia, and there is unlikely to be enough vaccine to go around, even in the worst affected countries, for many months; there are logistical problems of distribution that vary in different parts of the world but cannot be solved by arguments about relative efficacy or elimination of SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) – the immediate aim must be to prevent severe disease and death and reduce transmission. Undermining public confidence in vaccination is likely to mean that the most vulnerable people will continue to be exposed and die from severe disease.
c) Covid-19 does not fulfil the criteria for an infectious disease that can be eradicated, unlike smallpox and measles, for example which have no animal reservoir; a single immunological type; are easily diagnosed/typical disease with minimal or no asymptomatic infection. In contrast, SARS-CoV-2 infection has a reservoir in (or potential spread to) animals, a high rate of mild and asymptomatic infection and nonspecific symptoms and the potential for genetic variation that may, at some stage escape vaccine protection (this is another unknown – there is little or no evidence that current SARS Cov-2 variants can evade current vaccines, but we do not know what will happen under pressure from widespread vaccination or future spontaneous genetic variation).”
What's happening today
So things to look out for – we are still waiting to hear from Queensland and NSW on case numbers.
Queensland yesterday diagnosed a close contact of a cleaner carrying the highly contagious UK strain of coronavirus and with genomic testing we likely to get confirmation today or tomorrow that this second case carries the variant as well. The man also visited several locations while potentially contagious so it will be interesting to see if the additional testing and isolating has uncovered any new infections.
NSW is still “mopping up” community transmission of Covid-19 so the case numbers from the state in the next few days will be crucial in seeing if Sydney’s clusters are truly ending.
Updated
NSW still has 19 of its 212 Covid cases 'under investigation'
I’ve been seeing some people question what the total number of Covid-19 cases is in NSW, including the number of unlinked cases. I spoke to the NSW Department of Health yesterday, who told me that since 16 December until 8pm on 11 January, there have been:
- 151 cases linked with the Avalon cluster
- 4 cases linked with the patient transport worker
- 27 cases linked to the Berala cluster
- 11 cases linked to the Croydon cluster
- And 19 cases still under investigation. However, most of the 19 have been genomically linked to the Berala or Avalon clusters.
That is a total of 212 cases. Not all of those cases would still be “active”.
However, the Avalon cluster is genomically linked to the Croydon cluster. The patient transport worker, who infected a colleague and two close family contacts is genomically linked to the Berala cluster.
As a reminder, the Berala cluster emerged after a family who returned from overseas with Covid infected a NSW patient transport worker, who then passed the virus on to a colleague who went to the BWS store in Berala while infectious. From there, 27 Berala cases emerged. So there are two chains of transmission in NSW, the Department of Health said.
As for the 19 cases under investigation, it would be wrong to refer to them all as “mystery cases”. The 19 includes three people in Wollongong with the virus, but they’re genomically linked to the Avalon cluster.
It also includes a Palm Beach resident and two of that person’s close contacts. Even though it is clear the two close contacts were infected by the Palm Beach resident, until health authorities know exactly who the resident got the infection from, they consider all three cases under investigation.
Even if NSW Health know the venue where the virus was likely acquired, until they know exactly who in that venue passed it on to a case, they consider it under investigation.
It would be more concerning if some of the 19 cases under investigation were not genomically linked to the two existing transmission chains. The case of the man who was diagnosed at Mount Druitt hospital is also under investigation, and we will likely get the results of the genomic sequencing from that case today.
That’s not to say having cases under investigation is not concerning, along with the fact that it is still unknown how the Avalon cluster started. On Tuesday, the NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian said it was important to keep investigating the source of all cases:
We’ve never given up in New South Wales ...
Sometimes it takes hours or sometimes weeks, but we always get to the bottom of what we think happened, and I’m confident we’ll get there. But we also have to give our experts time to make the connections. And often, it can take one expert in one kind of example to work out a crossover between two people who are completely unrelated, to work out those answers. And I’m confident that we’ll get there. I don’t know when that will occur.
But the term “mystery case” is usually reserved for cases where there’s at least one other person with the virus that authorities have yet to locate. The 19 cases in NSW can be more accurately described as cases “under investigation” or with an “unknown source”.
Updated
Man arrested after glass doors of New Zealand parliament smashed with axe
Here is a bit of an update on the goings-on across the Tasman:
A lone man wielding an axe has attacked New Zealand’s parliament, currently empty of politicians over the summer holidays.
The parliament building, known locally as the Beehive, was attacked before dawn on Wednesday morning, with the lone axeman causing extensive damage to five exterior glass doors leading into the parliament.
Police were called to the scene at 5.25am and the man was arrested without incident at 5.35am, a police spokesperson said.
The 31-year-old is due to appear in Wellington district court on Wednesday and has been charged with intentional damage and possession of an offensive weapon.
You can read the full story below:
Updated
So that Victorian press conference I mentioned early on turned out to mostly be about the state’s community relief grant program.
Minister for disability, ageing and carers Luke Donnellan spoke to media a few minutes ago:
[It’s a] $5m program for 93 different organisations which have been successful, and these are one-off grants of up to $75,000 for community relief organisations to provide food for those in need.
There were 328 applications, so enormous number of applications. 93 being successful. And including the community growth program with Russell Shields behind me. This is very much about recognising that during Covid, there were many adverse impacts for those, both in terms of employment.
And there have also been changes in federal government payment programs, so we know that there are many people in need.
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The Australian Technical Advisory Group (ATAG) on Immunisation is an independent group that advises the federal health minister, Greg Hunt, on the national immunisation program and other immunisation issues.
I asked ATAG co-chair, epidemiologist and infectious diseases physician Professor Allen Cheng, about the calls from some doctors and immunologists to halt the rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine in Australia due to it being less effective than other vaccine candidates.
Cheng said it was important to remember that the vaccine has not even been registered by Australia’s drugs regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, yet. Neither has the Pfizer vaccine.
I think that we’re in the fortunate position where we can be cautious,” he said.
Australia currently has access to 10m doses of the Pfizer vaccine (to be delivered over a year) and 53m doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine (to be delivered at roughly one million doses a week).
We don’t know to what degree these reduce transmission. The AstraZeneca vaccine didn’t reduce asymptomatic infection, and this hasn’t been looked at in the Pfizer vaccine study.
Even if the Pfizer vaccine was fully effective against transmission, covering 20% of the population over a year would be unlikely to achieve herd immunity. So the choice we have is not whether to use one or the other, it is whether to use what we have – I’d think that there is a benefit in getting protected against disease, even if it doesn’t reduce transmission to the degree that we would like.
That said, I’m aware that there are ongoing discussions with vaccine manufacturers although I don’t know the status of negotiations.”
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Albanese refuses to bite on rebranded cheese
Just when you thought the cheese news would be over for the day Anthony Albanese has been asked about the renaming of iconic Australian brand Coon, reports the AAP.
The federal opposition leader was peppered with questions about the rebadged Cheer cheese during a talkback radio interview but refused to entertain any prospect of a reactionary culture war.
The product was originally named after an American cheesemaker, but the name was also a racial slur.
Albanese said while he did not agree with rewriting history or the controversy surrounding certain statues, he had no objection to the new name.
“Frankly, I think it is a commercial decision by the company and fair enough,” he told Sydney radio 2GB on Wednesday.
“Certainly it was named after some American cheesemaker ... it certainly isn’t named after any eulogising of a racist term.
“But the good news is the cheese will be the same, it’ll taste the same, and I think everyone will know it’s the same product.”
Albanese said the company was clearly motivated by selling more cheese: “And good luck to them.”
“This is something that will come and go,” he said.
Updated
Oh, by the way, we are standing by for the Victorian press conference which will start in the next few minutes.
The state has now recorded a week of no locally acquired Covid-19 cases.
Calls to pause AstraZeneca rollout are 'mania' says infectious disease expert
A professor of infectious diseases and former World Health Organization advisor, Peter Collignon, described calls from some doctors to halt the rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine in Australia due to questions around its efficacy and ability to achieve herd immunity as “mania”.
The AstraZeneca vaccine probably has a 70% efficacy or around that, which is pretty good.
You know, if you look at Melbourne, if all those people in nursing homes had been vaccinated with that AstraZeneca vaccine before that second wave, that would have saved about two thirds of the deaths. So, you know, it’s not perfect, I’d love to have 90% or 100% efficacy. But with the first lot of vaccines you may not get the dose schedule optimally organized all the time, and that will be seen after it’s rolled out more widely.
Collignon said this was the benefit Australia had by waiting on more data from countries already rolling out the vaccine before rolling it out here. He also reiterated that there are no questions about the overall safety of the vaccine.
He added that Australia had three different vaccine candidates, so would not be relying on AstraZeneca to vaccinate the entire population anyway.
We’ve got a huge advantage in Australia and this is why we shouldn’t rush and take shortcuts, we haven’t got uncontrolled Covid here.
I think a lot of what is being said about halting the AstraZeneca rollout is just unrealistic, it’s not real world and living in the real world.
And some of the people calling for it to be halted were the same people or groups of people who were saying three weeks ago, ‘don’t hold up the rollout in Australia, just roll it out now’. I think this has gone from one extreme to the other within three weeks.
Meanwhile the federal Australian Medical Association president Dr Omar Khorshid appears to have distanced himself from comments to The Australian by the Western Australian AMA president that the AstraZeneca vaccine rollout should be paused.
Khorshid said on Wednesday morning while the government could invest in other types of vaccines in addition to the three already secured, it was too early to know whether any of the vaccines would stop virus transmission as well as severe disease.
“The government actually hasn’t put its eggs all in one basket,” he told the Today show.
The government did deals with a number of companies well before there was any data about whether their vaccines were ever going to come to pass. And so far, two of those look like they’re going to be available in Australia, and there’s potentially more to come.
There’s a lot we don’t know yet about these vaccines; the data is still early. We do know some things, so we do know that they’re all safe, and we do know that they all seem to prevent you getting sick with Covid. So, that’s a really important thing. What we don’t know, though, is how well they stop you transmitting the disease to somebody else or carrying the disease. And we don’t know which vaccine’s going to be best for which different parts of the population, and that’s all data that we’re going to find out more about as time comes.
What is critical, though, is that you’ve got access to the vaccine. So when you’re making a decision around which vaccine to give, there’s a whole lot of stuff that the public don’t need to worry about, because there’s smart people that are advising the government to tell them what to do to rollout this really important program.”
Updated
Matt Canavan says Michael McCormack speaking 'common sense' over 'all lives matter' comment
Remember when I mentioned that Michael McCormack had said “all lives matter” yesterday? (A saying commonly used by white supremacists and the far right).
A colleague of the acting prime minister has leapt to his defence.
Queensland Nationals senator Matt Canavan told Nine’s Today show his leader was speaking common sense when he declared “All lives matter” after linking the deadly insurrection of the US Capitol with Black Lives Matter protests.
I agree with Michael McCormack on all those things.
He had a great day because he spoke common sense. You cop criticism in this country these days for speaking common sense.
He went on to criticise the Black Lives Matter movement as a whole.
Of course black lives matter, but the Black Lives Matter movement is a completely debased organisation in the United States ...
They’ve been responsible for untold damage.
While the US did experience some protests that resulted in property damage and violence, the movement has generally been peaceful across the world.
For those who don’t remember from yesterday, the Nationals leader used the inflammatory “All lives matter” line after a morning of copping criticism for comparing the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol to racial injustice protesters.
Here are his full words:
I abhor violence of any form. The Black Lives Matter protests, as at mid-last year, cost 19 lives. That’s 19 lives that should not have been lost. I’m not going to apologise because I said that violence in any form should not happen, from a protest ...
I appreciate there are a lot of people out there who are being a bit bleeding heart about this and who are confecting outrage, but they should know those lives matter too. All lives matter.
People shouldn’t have to go to a protest and lose their life.
Updated
Australian experts express concern over AstraZeneca vaccine's low efficacy rate
Infectious diseases experts across Australia have been expressing concern over Australia’s reliance on the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine for our vaccination programs and it has a comparatively low efficacy rate compared with other options on the market.
The AstraZeneca vaccine’s efficacy rate lands somewhere between 62% and 90%, with experts warning that the lower end of that scale could hurt Australia’s chances of achieving herd immunity.
Australia is producing 53m doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, procuring around 10m doses of the Pfizer vaccine from overseas and has a number of other vaccine deals in place.
The federal chief medical officer, Paul Kelly had appeared on ABC this morning to discuss the issue.
The great advantage of the AstraZeneca vaccine is it’s being made here in Australia. It will be available as soon as the TGA gives its tick, which we expect that it will in February.
I just want to make the point, though, we’re not the only country in the world that has AstraZeneca ordered. There are large orders, in fact you could see that AstraZeneca is one of the main-stays of the global response and remains so.
The AstraZeneca vaccine is effective, it is safe, and it’s a high-quality vaccine. But those are the things that the TGA will be looking at with their full approval coming very soon.
Updated
Australian arrested in Germany for allegedly operating 'world’s largest' darknet marketplace
A German-led police sting has taken down the “world’s largest” darknet marketplace, whose Australian alleged operator used it to facilitate the sale of drugs, stolen credit card data and malware, prosecutors said Tuesday.
At the time of its closure, DarkMarket had nearly 500,000 users and more than 2,400 vendors worldwide, as the coronavirus pandemic leads much of the street trade in narcotics to go online.
Police in the northern city of Oldenburg “were able to arrest the alleged operator of the suspected world’s largest illegal marketplace on the darknet, the DarkMarket, at the weekend,” prosecutors said in a statement.
“Investigators were able to shut down the marketplace and turn off the server on Monday,” they added, calling it the culmination of a months-long international law enforcement operation.
A total of at least 320,000 transactions were carried out via the marketplace, with more than 4,650 bitcoin and 12,800 monero – two of the most common cryptocurrencies – changing hands, prosecutors said.
You can read the full story below:
Updated
Malcolm Turnbull criticises government for not condemning Craig Kelly
Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull is speaking with ABC now and has just been asked for his views on how the government should respond to politicians such as George Christensen and Craig Kelly who spread misinformation.
So far the acting prime minister Micheal McCormack has refused to condemn them.
Well, look, the very least the prime minister, the health minister, the acting prime minister, should call it out for what it is. I mean, you know, freedom of speech does not mean freedom from responsibility ...
The fact is you got to hold people responsible for what they say, particularly if they’re people of influence, political leaders, media proprietors. What Morrison and McCormack and Hunt and others should be saying – at the very least – is that Craig Kelly is wrong and that it is reckless and irresponsible to be misleading the Australian public on matters of public health ...
We’re not talking about, you know, interesting issues of political philosophy or even economics, we’re talking about the public health of Australians. It’s hard to think of anything more important. And if you have got a member of parliament pedalling misleading and dangerous information, then that, at the very least, needs to be called out and condemned and contradicted by the government.
Updated
Victoria records no new locally acquired Covid cases
It’s the news I look forward to every 8.04am. Victoria records zero new locally acquired cases.
It’s not quite the “triple doughnuts” that we have come to know and love, as there are three cases from overseas travellers in hotel quarantine, but we shall forgive them for that.
Yesterday 0 new locally acquired cases were reported. There are 3 new cases in hotel quarantine. 17,908 test results were received. Got symptoms? Get tested - #EveryTestHelps. More later: https://t.co/lIUrl0ZEco #COVID19VicData pic.twitter.com/lQsgK365mF
— VicGovDHHS (@VicGovDHHS) January 12, 2021
Updated
Australia's Coon cheese chooses new name
Australian cheese brand Coon has finally picked a new (less racially dubious) name – Cheer.
Saputo Dairy who produces the cheese undertook a review of the Australian brand which took into account the “current attitudes and perspectives” after the community questioned the original name, which is also a racial slur.
The global head of Saputo Lino A Supato issued a statement:
Our decision to change the name of Australia’s much-loved cheese reinforces this commitment to build a culture of acceptance, inclusion and respect where everyone feels a sense of belonging.
The new name, Cheer, was chosen because it “signals happiness”, Saputo Dairy Australia commercial director Cam Bruce said.
Cheer Cheese enriches everyday moments, with our signature taste that brightens your morning, noon or night.
Cheer cheese will be on the supermarket shelves nationwide from July 2021.
Coon cheese has been sold in Australia since the 1930s and was originally named after the American who developed the maturation process, Edward William Coon.
Updated
Some left to see their nephew for the first time. Others to be a bridesmaid at a friend’s wedding. Or to see their family in Sydney again some 10 months after moving south without them.
And then they were stuck, among the thousands of Victorians who went interstate before Christmas and found themselves without a clear way home.
The path is clearer since Monday when the Andrews government announced a permit system for travellers. As of Tuesday afternoon, more than 50,000 had been issued.
But for some Victorians, confusion remains, as well as a lingering unease about being barred from their own state, and worry that others feel so strongly they should never have travelled interstate in the first place.
You can read Nino Bucci’s full story below:
Bushfire south of Perth downgraded
In some good news a bushfire near the town of Cockburn, south of Perth has been downgraded to watch and act, which lets residents return home.
Earlier, locals in parts of Atwell, Aubin Grove and Banjup were told to leave immediately under an emergency warning as fire crews and water bombers battled an out-of-control blaze.
But authorities are warning residents to remain aware as it was still possible that the fire could threaten to lives and homes if conditions change rapidly.
“If you are well prepared and plan to actively defend your home, make final preparations now,” the alert issued on Wednesday said.
Updated
NSW still trying to link 14 mystery Covid cases
Just a bit more information on those mystery cases in Syndey, courtesy of AAP.
NSW Health still has 14 recent coronavirus cases that they hope to link to known clusters.
All up, 12 cases found since 16 December are still being investigated by NSW contact tracers, including three detected before Christmas.
A further two cases – from the Canterbury-Bankstown and Lane Cove council areas – have been fully investigated without any link found.
NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian says it is unlikely any restrictions in greater Sydney will be eased this week.
We’re still seeing community transmission.
Even though in most instances, [they are] household contacts or people already in isolation, but we have had a couple of examples where they’re still unlinked, and that’s always a concern.
She again backed the contact tracing teams, saying their work allowed her government to make decisions that didn’t place “unnecessary burdens” on residents.
She said the search to identify the case that sparked the northern beaches outbreak wouldn’t be stopped.
We never give up the hunt in NSW. Sometimes it might take us hours, sometimes days, or sometimes weeks, but we always get to the bottom of what we think happened, and I’m confident we’ll get there.
But we also have to give our experts time to make those connections.
Testing numbers reported on Tuesday were again below that of the day before, concerning officials.
Daily testing figures fell as low as 6,173 just before the northern beaches outbreak was discovered.
NSW Health’s Jeremy McAnulty said this wasn’t good enough.
We need 25,000-plus tests a day and we particularly need to see testing in places such as the northern beaches, such as western Sydney where we’ve seen cases recently.
NSW has more than 200 active coronavirus cases, including one person who is in hospital in intensive care.
Alerts remain out for dozens of hotspots, including a shopping centre in Warriewood, a post office in Hurlstone Park and a workers club in Blacktown.
Meanwhile, the ACT and Northern Territory have lifted travel restrictions for the Central Coast, Wollongong and some parts of Greater Sydney.
Updated
Good morning all, Matilda Boseley here ready to take you through all the news that will undoubtedly unfold this Wednesday.
If you see anything that you think belongs in the blog, make sure you send it through to me on Twitter @MatildaBoseley or by email on matilda.boseley@theguardian.com.
Yesterday we spoke (at length) about the Nationals leader and acting prime minister Michael McCormack who managed to have an extremely controversial first 48 hours in the top job. (He is holding the reins of the country while Scott Morrison is on holidays).
McCormack has refused to condemn National MP George Christensen and Liberal MP Craig Kelly, after they spent the last few days spreading misinformation on Facebook.
Kelly on Monday night posted saying that mandatory mask-wearing was “child abuse”, citing a number of dubious statistics from a non-peer-reviewed study.
These comments have been slammed by the Australian Medical Association and the federal opposition, but McCormack responded to questions about whether politicians should be censured for spreading misinformation by saying that “facts are contentious” and politicians are entitled to their own opinions.
(And if you thought one controversy just wasn’t enough, McCormack also repeatedly compared the deadly insurrection of the US Capitol building to Black Lives Matter protests across the world, and stated “All lives matter”, a popular anti-BLM catchphrase.)
In Covid-19 news, NSW is still scrambling to find the source of multiple mystery cases across Sydney as they continue to “mop up” clusters.
Four weeks on from discovering the northern beaches outbreak, NSW Health is still trying to link 14 recent coronavirus cases to known clusters. Of the five locally acquired coronavirus cases reported on yesterday, the origins of four new cases – one on the northern beaches (who has infected a close contact of that person) and one in Blacktown (who has infected a close contact of that person) – are so far unknown.
All up, 12 cases found since 16 December are still being investigated by NSW contact tracers, including three detected before Christmas.
NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian stated it was unlikely that any further restrictions would be eased this week.
Updated
