Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Lisa Cox (now) and Amy Remeikis (earlier)

Australia's coronavirus cases continue to decline as government backtracks on vaccine statements – as it happened

default

Summary

And that’s where we’ll leave things for this evening. A reminder of some of today’s key moments:

  • The government has been scrutinised over its “agreement” with British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca. The federal government has signed a letter of intent with drug company AstraZeneca to supply a Covid-19 vaccine to Australia. Labor and the Greens said a letter of intent was not a deal.
  • The prime minister, Scott Morrison, told an interview this morning that any vaccine would be “as mandatory as possible”. He backtracked those comments later on Wednesday saying the government would not make a Covid-19 vaccine compulsory.
  • Victoria recorded 216 new cases and 12 deaths. All of the deaths were linked to outbreaks in aged care facilities.
  • The Victorian government said local government elections due to take place on 24 October will still go ahead.
  • The federal government said it will make data available on the number of people within the National Disability Insurance Scheme – both participants and workers – who have Covid-19.
  • NSW recorded seven new Covid-19 cases. The premier, Gladys Berejiklian, said the government was now encouraging hospitality workers to wear masks.

Thanks for following our coverage today. We’ll see you tomorrow. Stay safe.

Updated

Public health alert for Brisbane south

Queensland health authorities have issued an alert for passengers on Virgin flight VA962 from Brisbane to Sydney on Monday, 17 August 2020 and anyone who dined at The Jam Pantry café at Greenslopes on Sunday, 16 August 2020.

It comes after Japanese health authorities advised Queensland Health of a case that tested positive for Covid-19 after returning to Japan from Brisbane, via Sydney.

Queensland chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young said contact tracing was underway.

The woman arrived in Australia in mid-July and was in hotel quarantine in Sydney for two weeks prior to coming to Brisbane. While in quarantine, she returned two negative test results.

Because she quarantined in Sydney and travelled straight to Brisbane from hotel quarantine, she could go about her normal life in Brisbane.

On her arrival in Japan on 18 August, she was asymptomatic but returned a positive Covid-19 result.

While we are still determining where the virus may have been acquired, we are working with Japanese authorities to gather necessary information.

Young said six close contacts identified by the woman had been tested and were now in quarantine. Officials are working with Virgin Australia to contact passengers on the flight, who are being asked to get tested immediately if they develop symptoms.

Anyone else who dined at the café outside these hours on that day should come forward for testing if they develop any Covid-19 symptoms.

Updated

The Municipal Association of Victoria is disappointed by the state government’s decision not to delay the October local government elections.

Its president, Coral Ross, said the association believed the elections have been seriously compromised by Covid-19 and the ongoing restrictions.

With the ongoing restrictions in metropolitan Melbourne and rural and regional Victoria, we face the very real proposition that many exceptional candidates will not nominate.

Current stage 4 and 3 restrictions also make campaigning very difficult and costly.

We have been calling for a deferral of local government elections for months now due to the significant impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on free and fair elections.

[Local government minister Shaun] Leane’s announcement today means that the elections will not have the quality and diversity of candidates that Victoria deserves.

Updated

In Canberra, the RiotACT is reporting the city’s airport may have to “shut down completely” if a way to boost domestic flights can’t be found by 1 October.

Managing director Stephen Byron said the airport was operating at only 1% capacity with less than 100 passengers a day after states closed their borders due to Covid-19 outbreaks in NSW and Victoria, in effect treating Canberra as if it were a suburb of Sydney.

You can read the article here.

An empty passenger terminal at Canberra Airport.
An empty passenger terminal at Canberra Airport. Photograph: Xinhua/REX/Shutterstock

Updated

I’ve just heard from the office of health minister Greg Hunt on the issue of mandatory vaccinations. Hunt has made it clear that there will be no compulsory vaccinations, despite the comments earlier of the prime minister Scott Morrison that they would be as mandatory as possible.

A spokesman for Hunt flagged a tough stance on vaccinations and “certain policy decisions” to encourage uptake of any vaccine, if one is found to be safe and effective. But he said no one would be forced to take the vaccine.

As the prime minister outlined today, the government does not make vaccinations compulsory. We cannot force vaccinations on any Australian. Our goal is to ensure as comprehensive coverage as we possibly can, as we do with all critical vaccinations.

Any decisions regarding the availability of a potential Covid-19 vaccine and related policies will be based on the advice of the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation and other experts, and will be contingent on a vaccine candidate meeting all requirements with regard to testing and safety.

A chemist at AstraZeneca’s headquarters in Sydney, 19 August 2020.
A chemist at AstraZeneca’s headquarters in Sydney, 19 August 2020. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP

The industry minister Karen Andrews had earlier suggested the vaccine would be mandatory. In comments to 2GB, she said:

Look the prime minister has dealt with that issue this morning and he’s on the record as saying that we will make this as mandatory as possible... that basically there will be medical exemptions that will be considered but the prime minister has made it clear that we are looking at it being a mandatory vaccine.

Updated

Here is a fuller extract of what Scott Morrison told 2GB backtracking on his previous comments about the coronavirus vaccine (he told 3AW this morning: “I would expect it to be as mandatory as you can possibly make”):

I just heard that caller – can I be really clear to everyone. It is not going to be compulsory to have the vaccine, OK? It’s not compulsory. There are no compulsory vaccines in Australia. There are no things that force people to do things.

What we want to achieve is as much vaccination as we possibly can should the vaccine actually prove successful and get through those trials. I mean, Australia has one of the best records in the world of getting high rates of immunisation. We do that through a mixture of measures.

So I think there’s been a bit of an overreaction to any suggestion of this. There will be no compulsory vaccine but there will be a lot of encouragement and measures to get as high a rate of acceptance as usual.

He added:

I understand that people can feel very anxious about these things, and it’s a very stressful time, but I think everybody needs to understand: no one is going to force anybody to do anything as a compulsory measure, but we certainly will be encouraging people to take this up … everybody needs to understand what we are trying to achieve here.

Updated

Scott Morrison says any Covid-19 vaccine will not be compulsory

The prime minister, Scott Morrison, has been interviewed on 2GB.

He’s said a Covid-19 vaccine will not be compulsory, but “encouraged”. Just a reminder, the PM had said earlier today that a vaccine would be “as mandatory as you could possibly make”.

On the Victorian outbreak, he says he thinks the state has turned a corner but testing rates need to remain high. He adds there have been “very significant improvements in how they are getting the (contact) tracing timetables met”.

On the issue of border restriction and frustrations in border towns, Morrison says states “need to be mindful of the impact that has on people”.

Prime minister Scott Morrison is seen wearing a face mask during a press conference at AstraZeneca on 19 August 2020 in Sydney, Australia.
Prime minister Scott Morrison is seen wearing a face mask during a press conference at AstraZeneca on 19 August 2020 in Sydney, Australia. Photograph: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

I’ve obviously raised issues around people being able to get to work...as well as people being able to access medical services.

It’s not restricted to Queensland. I’ve raised similar issues in NSW and South Australia and we’ve been able to make a lot of progress on those.

Morrison says that in the spirit of cooperation, “some of the most severe inconveniences” should be able to be resolved.

He ends the interview by stressing again that any vaccine that becomes available for Covid-19, “it’s not compulsory”.

Updated

The Victorian government has also released its afternoon update, following the press conference earlier today.

A reminder of some of those earlier figures: 216 new cases – 47 linked to outbreaks and 169 under investigation – and, sadly, 12 deaths. All of those deaths were linked to aged care facilities.

Of the total cases to date:

  • 16,049 cases are from metropolitan Melbourne, while 1041 are from regional Victoria.
  • Total cases include 8,376 men and 9,031 women.
  • Healthcare workers active cases: 1,065.
  • There are 2,040 active cases relating to aged care facilities.

Active aged care outbreaks with the highest cumulative case numbers are as follows:

  • 205 cases have been linked to Epping Gardens Aged Care in Epping.
  • 191 cases have been linked to St Basil’s Homes for the Aged in Fawkner.
  • 157 cases have been linked to Estia Aged Care Facility in Ardeer.
  • 147 cases have been linked to BaptCare Wyndham Lodge Community in Werribee.
  • 131 cases have been linked to Kirkbrae Presbyterian Homes in Kilsyth.
  • 111 cases have been linked to Outlook Gardens Aged Care Facility in Dandenong North.
  • 110 cases have been linked to Estia Aged Care Facility in Heidelberg.
  • 108 cases have been linked to Cumberland Manor Aged Care Facility in Sunshine.
  • 103 cases have been linked to Twin Parks Aged Care in Reservoir.
  • 100 cases have been linked to Japara Goonawarra in Sunbury.

In Victoria there are currently 79 active cases in residential disability accommodation, 19 of which are residents and 60 are staff.

Updated

The Victorian government says local government elections will go ahead as scheduled on Saturday 24 October.

The local government minister, Shaun Leane, says he has taken advice from the state’s chief health officer, Brett Sutton.

The chief health officer has advised that October represents a period when risk is likely to be substantially lower than at present, and there are no compelling public health grounds for the elections to be delayed.

Leane says Sutton has worked closely with the Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC) and is satisfied that appropriate physical distancing, cleaning and hygiene and workforce planning have all been considered and integrated into the electoral commission’s Covid-safe plans.

The VEC have advised that election preparations are already well underway and that there are no administrative or procedural barriers to the election being held on 24 October 2020.

Leane says the decision was not made lightly and was based on the best public health advice available.

He says safe campaigning guidelines have been developed. They include advice on how to safely conduct permitted campaign activities, safety for campaign teams, hygiene and physical distancing.

Updated

The ABC has announced the 2020 Boyer Lectures to be delivered by the philanthropist and business leader Andrew Forrest will be delayed due to ongoing Covid-19 travel restrictions and border closures.

The four-part lecture series – Rebooting Australia: How ethical entrepreneurs can help shape a better future – was scheduled to be broadcast on ABC Radio National from 28 November.

The radio broadcasts and a live television recording in Perth of one of the lectures will now take place in January, with dates to be confirmed.

Updated

The Crown Resorts casino empire controlled by the billionaire James Packer received more than $110m in jobkeeper payments from the Australian government, propping up the group’s profit.

Crown’s full-year results, filed today with the ASX, show the $111.3m the group received to pay both working and stood-down employees was almost two-thirds of its profit before tax of $153m.

This was close to a quarter of the profit before tax the previous year – no surprise, as Crown’s gaming floors largely shut down during the first wave of the pandemic.However, Crown only got any benefit from about $43m that was paid to workers who it continued to keep on the job - the remainder flowed directly to people who’d been stood down.

Crown hasn’t paid a dividend.

The entrance to the Crown casino in Melbourne lies empty today as its parent company Crown Resorts announced its full-year results
The entrance to the Crown casino in Melbourne lies empty today as its parent company Crown Resorts announced its full-year results. Photograph: William West/AFP/Getty Images

Elsewhere, investment bank Moelis got $1.5m in jobkeeper payments and totalisator group Tabcorp received $4m.

However, despite guidance from the corporate regulator that companies should “prominently disclose” jobkeeper payments in their financial reports, it’s not clear how much pizza chain Domino’s got.

It’s disclosed $3.2m in total government support, but this includes money received in New Zealand, Australia and France, where apparently favourites include the Orientale (sauce tomate, mozzarella, oignons, merguez, poivrons mélangés).

Asked what the actual jobkeeper figure was, a Domino’s spokeswoman said: “In accordance with the Asic guidance, the disclosure has specifically included the amount of government assistance and the nature of that assistance across the group.”

“Domino’s has met its disclosure obligations and does not agree that the further information that you have requested is required by investors or shareholders.”

The question is important because Domino’s has paid a dividend to shareholders of 52.6c a share. Without knowing what the jobkeeper payment was, we can’t tell what its contribution to this dividend payment was.

You can see some of our previous coverage of the “dividend keeper” issue here.

Updated

And that’s it for the national update.

The Greens have responded to the government’s announcement today about its arrangement with AstraZeneca – that letter of intent – saying the deal has “little substance”.

The Greens leader, Adam Bandt, says the prime minister should be signing Australia up to the global vaccine collaboration, Covax.

“Instead of doing what is really needed, the government is trying to spin its way out of its failure to act on a Covid vaccine,” Bandt says.

“A letter of intent is not an agreement or a deal. And this is just one vaccine program, but what if it fails? The government seems to be putting all our chips on one number on the vaccine roulette wheel.”

Updated

Coatsworth is now turning to strategies to increase the general public’s confidence in any new vaccine.

He says that will include communicating the results of phase one and two safety trials.

“Those results have been excellent in terms of safety profile for these candidate vaccines, including the Oxford vaccine,” he says.

“When we get into the phase three trials where there’s many more people, tens of thousands more people now, you get even more safety data. That needs to be clearly communicated to the public.

“When the general public starts getting jabbed, we get the post marketing data and that’s where our robust regulation systems come in to make sure if there are unexpected post marketing side effects of this drug, that they’re found out immediately.”

Now a question on what the announced letter of intent with drug company AstraZeneca actually means.

He says it’s about “the ability of Australia to be able to produce a licensed vaccine in the country. It’s the way I understand it,” he says.

“And having that critical first step, as it relates to the Oxford vaccine, which is clearly one of the most promising vaccine candidates and why we’ve engaged first with AstraZeneca.

“So that is why the media release today was done with colleagues from CSL and noting that we really do have, not just some serious research power, but some serious manufacturing capability in Australia through that particularly successful Australian company.”

Updated

Following on from the first question on potential rules related to vaccines, Coatsworth is asked what if any vaccination requirement might be in place for travellers once international travel resumes.

Again, too soon to say, Coatsworth says: “The state of the epidemic around the world and in Australia means that international travel is not at the forefront of our minds at the moment,” he says.

“Though clearly we do have the international students pilot program planning to be started and that would likely be started before a vaccine became available.”

Coatsworth is asked what protocols there will be if and when a vaccine is available.

He says those kinds of things are not under consideration at the moment.

He says the most important thing at the moment is to secure capacity to manufacture a vaccine.

Coatsworth stresses the science around a vaccine is complicated and “hard to unpick”.

He says that’s why we “need to get the best people in Australia advising us on these complicated matters, where the virus is new and the evidence is emerging”.

“As was announced today, the scientific and technical advisory committee to government on the Covid-19 vaccines contains some of Australia’s most eminent scientists or vaccinologists,” he says.

Updated

Coatsworth is now turning to the talk about a vaccine.

“Because we’re hearing a lot about the names of the vaccines, a vaccine from Oxford and one called the molecular clamp vaccine, which is the technology that’s proprietary to our own researchers at the University of Queensland.”

He says both of those are showing a lot of promise among a range of other candidate vaccines around the country.

“What do you have to do to get a vaccine? The vaccine has to be able to produce the immune response in the body, either through boosting antibody production, which is one arm of the immune system, or activating what we call the cellular immune response, another part of the immune system.”

Updated

The deputy chief medical officer, Nick Coatsworth, is giving today’s national Covid update.

He says 228 cases were newly confirmed to 12 noon today, taking the national total for the pandemic to date to 23,993.

There have been 12 deaths related to Covid-19 in the past 24 hours. And 450 total deaths in Australia during the current epidemic.

I am going to hand you over to Lisa Cox for the rest of the afternoon. She’ll take you through the national Covid update and anything else which happens as the day draws to a close.

A very big thank you for joining me. I’ll be back early tomorrow morning. As always – take care of you. Ax

Updated

The Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation has released a statement on the number of cases in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Victoria:

Another large spike in confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Aboriginal and or Torres Strait Islander Communities is a stark reminder for Victorians that this pandemic is not over, and people still need to comply with the rules while staying connected.

There are now 65 confirmed Covid-19 cases in Aboriginal and or Torres Strait Islander communities in Victoria, up 9 on the 56 cases recorded late last week.

The latest figures from the Department of Health and Human Services show that 38 people have recovered from the virus while 27 cases are still active.

New data show a spike in Covid-19 cases in Hume, Yarra and Mitchell local government areas.

Worryingly, there are also cases of Covid-19 in Aboriginal and or Torres Strait Islander communities in Greater Bendigo and Greater Geelong which shows this insidious virus is now spreading to mob in regional Victoria.

Updated

In Chris Bowen’s own words:

AstraZeneca’s Liz Chatwin speaks to the media during Scott Morrison’s visit
AstraZeneca’s Liz Chatwin speaks to the media during Scott Morrison’s visit to the drug maker’s Sydney laboratories. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP

Here is what Liz Chatwin, the country president of AstraZeneca had to say at the prime minister’s press conference today:

A couple of words about our site, this is our, this is the largest manufacturing facility in Australia, but we don’t make vaccines here.

We make a product called Pulmicort Respules, which is exported to Asia-Pacific and predominantly to China – $1.2bn of exports last year.

As a company, we’ve been partnering with Oxford University, one of the leading vaccine candidates, and our ambition is to provide broad and equitable access to this vaccine around the globe at no profit during the pandemic.

We’re delighted that we’ve signed this letter of intent with the Australian government.

It’s the first step, as the prime minister and Prof Kelly have said, to secure the Australian people with a vaccine.

The next steps, of course, are getting down into the details of contractual agreements, the numbers, the timelines, the doses, the pricing, and securing an agreement with our selected Australian manufacturers so we can manufacture the vaccine here locally, should it prove successful.

There’s no guarantee that this vaccine will protect against Covid-19.

We don’t even know whether, how long that protection may last or at what dosage. So the science and the data is the priority for us over the next few months.

Updated

And just to be crystal clear, if you read Josh’s update a few posts down, you’ll see that there have been just 42 fines for breaching self-isolation.

Remember when Daniel Andrews said 800 people weren’t home during the self-isolation checks? That was when people were still allowed an hour outside to (socially distance) exercise.

Of the 30,000 self-isolation checks, just 42 people have been fined. That includes that 800.

So that means 758 people had allowable (for the time) reasons for being out of the house – the most common reasons were incorrect or outdated address on file, or exercise.

Updated

Just in case you missed it, the statement from AstraZeneca to Pharma in Focus about today’s announcement from Scott Morrison on the vaccine makes clear that it is purely a letter of intent:

The [letter of intent] LOI doesn’t go into any actual detail about costs or numbers or anything until we have an idea of what the manufacturing capacity is – that’s a critical piece in the puzzle.

There is a letter of intent which is a good first step. The critical next step is to determine manufacturing capacity.

Discussions with CSL (Australia’s biggest biotech company) are on-going. They’re still looking into whether they have the capability and capacity to produce a vaccine. We’re hoping that those discussions will be concluded swiftly, but they are still on-going.


Updated

The statement Chris Bowen is highlighting here comes from the industry publication Pharma in Focus:

Updated

Continued from last post:

But compliance has significantly improved since Andrews said more than a quarter of people with Covid-19 weren’t at home when checked. Out of nearly 30,000 checks, only 42 fines have been issued.*

Nugent said most who were found not to be at home were either in the shower or out in the back shed, or had provided an incorrect address, or were out for one of the allowable reasons – medical emergency or need to escape the home.

Out in the community, Nugent said police were issuing around 200 fines a day for failing to comply with the rules.

The checkpoints set up on Melbourne’s main arterial roads are having another consequence, Nugent said – finding stolen cars, drugs and weapons.

He said people, perhaps unaware of the checkpoints, were trying to pass through them when stopped by police.

“It’s just ... what were they thinking? But as I said it was nice of them to deliver themselves to the police with all of the contraband so that we can process them.”

*Remember when that figure of 800 was put out there by the premier? Well, that was the number of referrals to police. But we have landed on 42.

Updated

Victoria police wanted to use drones from the Australian Defence Force to monitor places where people might be going out over the Easter long weekend, it has been revealed.

Yesterday the ADF told the Senate committee on Covid-19 that the one request it had rejected from Victoria for assistance during Covid-19 was for use of drones.

The premier, Daniel Andrews, said today he wasn’t aware of the request, but the Victoria police deputy commissioner, Rick Nugent, said the request came from the police over Easter.

He said the request was to build the capacity Victoria police had to monitor camping grounds, beaches and other places.

“We’ve got some of our own, we’re just looking for some support,” he said, adding it was “quite valuable in providing real-time information on people’s behaviour.”

Nugent also revealed that when the ADF refer to Victoria police a check-up on people who should be at home due to testing positive for coronavirus or being a close contact of someone who has tested positive, Victoria police use people’s geolocation data on their mobile phones after calling them to double check they are where they say they are supposed to be.

Updated

The Council on the Ageing has responded to the news the pension will not receive an indexation increase (for the first time since 1997).

It wants another $750 payment.

The COTA chief executive, Ian Yates, wrote to the minister for families and community services, Anne Ruston, asking for the additional support:

Australia’s world-class pension indexation gives pensioners regular increases by the higher of the consumer price index (CPI), pensioner and beneficiary living cost index (PBLCI) and 25% of male total average weekly earnings (for couple pension, effectively 27.7% for singles). The fourth protection is that if the outcome of these three indices is negative – a fall in value, the pension does not fall, it stays the same. COTA accepts this and strongly supports the indexation formula which has served us well. However, during the Covid-19 pandemic period prices affecting pensioners have fluctuated for a variety of reasons, Yates wrote.

The impact of increased costs has been compounded by a reduced number of “specials” or “discounts” to the ticket price for many food items, and reduced access to “specials” by cost-conscious pensioners when they are following government advice to stay at home and shop from home.

In doing so they have also incurred the additional costs of home delivery. While the CPI has gone down because of the impact of items like childcare this does not help age pensioners.

There are range of other pressures on low-income people in this pandemic, such as transport costs when it’s not safe to travel on public transport. Pensioners live very close to the poverty line, and in private rental, below it.

And while the two previous $750 payments have been very welcome, pensioners have ended up with less income in this period than people on the increased level of jobseeker.

Accordingly, we urge the government to provide an additional $750 stimulus payment as part of your economic stimulus measures, for the benefit of both pensioners and the economy.

Updated

Remember yesterday when the Australian Defence Force told the Senate committee it had rejected a request from Victoria for aerial support?

This was the request: the police wanted ADF drones to spy on people from the air.

Updated

So this is interesting:

Business and economic groups are starting to make noises about this issue – so pay attention to what happens here:

Updated

There are 1,700 police in Victoria focused on whether or not people are obeying the quarantine and restriction rules.

Yesterday, 154 fines were issued, mostly for people not wearing masks, or breaching curfew.

Food has been one of the big curfew excuses, with people heading out after 8pm to get takeaway.

Updated

Chris Bowen:

I stress that if the government had signed an agreement I would be here today saying that we welcome it.

Later than we would have liked, but we welcome it.

But we cannot welcome agreement that simply does not exist.

If the prime minister had been honest and said that we just signed a letter of intent with ongoing negotiations and discussions to come, the Australian public would have accepted that.

But to spin it dishonestly is unacceptable and is just not right in the middle of this pandemic for the government to engage in such spin.

It does not have an agreement and they should be honest about it.

They should should be entering into these agreements with AstraZeneca and other vaccines.

Not all of them but at least a few more so that Australians have the best chance of getting access to the vaccine that works. We don’t know which one will.

It might be the AstraZeneca, it might be one of the 160 under development.

Updated

Chris Bowen continues:

Now it is not clear, despite the prime minister’s spin and rhetoric, that we have the manufacturing capacity in Australia to produce the AstraZeneca vaccine.

CSL has some vaccine production capacity but they cannot produce every type.

And AstraZeneca are unsure if CSL can produce it and CSL said they are concentrating on the University of Queensland vaccine.

So this is a prime minister who has completely jumped the gun in his announcement but he has not jumped the gun on the substance.

The government is way behind on the substance.

The government says it is not yet time to sign an agreement with AstraZeneca but other countries have.

The US has, the UK has, Japan has, India has, Brazil has, South Korea have, China has, Argentina and Mexico have.

But Australia has not. When the prime minister says that Australians will have first access to this vaccine he is simply not telling the truth.

Other governments have that. The first agreement was signed in mid-May.

His government has not at it and no amount of spin today will change that fact.

The government was ready to go, they just don’t have an agreement.

It reminds me of the bushfires when they were ready to go but they were completely mismanaging the bushfire crisis.

They are all about their priority of spin and not about substance.

Updated

Labor disputes vaccine agreement claim

Chris Bowen is speaking in Sydney, with some points on what the prime minister has been saying about the vaccine ‘agreement’.

This morning in multiple media interviews the prime minister told the Australian people, that his government signed a deal with the pharmaceutical company ... for supply of the vaccine being developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University to Australians.

If that were true I would be here today warmly welcoming it.

We have called for the government to sign advance supply agreements with not only AstraZeneca but other vaccines under development as well to ensure that Australians have the best chance for access to the vaccine as soon as it is ready to roll.

The fact of the matter is the prime minister this morning was not telling the truth.

Today AstraZeneca has said there is no agreement that has been signed.

AstraZeneca has said the letter of intent is not going into any detail about cost numbers or anything until they have an idea of what the manufacturing capacity is.

That is a critical piece of the puzzle. It went on to say that there is a letter of intent, which is a good first step, a critical next step is to develop the manufacturing capacity.

Updated

The royal commission into disability abuse is looking at the pandemic response today.

AAP has an update:

A woman with disability in Melbourne has been left without support at home for almost a month amid the city’s tough coronavirus lockdown.

Her sister, Sheree Driver, called for greater flexibility around caring arrangements at Wednesday’s disability royal commission hearing in Sydney.

Driver’s sister has a psychosocial disability and complex needs and requires help with basic daily tasks.

The carer of Driver’s sister caught Covid-19 and was placed in an induced coma, which has left her without support since 24 July.

Driver, herself a disability worker, applied to the National Disability Insurance Agency for special permission to act as carer but it was denied.

She was told the NDIA would not fund a family member as carer until all other options to find suitable support had been exhausted.

Driver said she understood why NDIA protocols prevented family members from being carers but in times of crisis everything should be considered.

“I would focus on what the participant needs, not what is written in text,” she said.

“We should look at individual circumstances, with safety and quality checks in place to avoid exploitation of the system

“There is no one closer than family. They will take the utmost measures to keep their family safe.”

Driver and her sister, who lives alone, both caught coronavirus in late July but no longer have symptoms.

Driver said her sister was hyper-vigilant and fearful of catching the virus and dying if another worker came to help.

Her brother has been able to do grocery shopping and other tasks, while Driver is keeping in touch via video calls.

The disability royal commission is holding a four-day hearing examining the impact of coronavirus on people with a disability.

It has heard the federal government’s initial pandemic plan in February didn’t explicitly mention people with a disability, with a specific plan not approved until mid-April.

Updated

A new report has come out, detailing NDIS participants’ experiences so far during the pandemic.

From the Every Australian Counts release:

The report Left Out and Locked Down by Every Australian Counts asked more than 700 NDIS participants and their families about the impact of Covid-19 and the lockdown on their lives during the first wave of the pandemic, how they coped, and their views on changes made to the NDIS during this time.

Every Australian Counts campaign director Kirsten Deane, who gave evidence at the disability royal commission today, said that people with disability and their families felt forgotten during the early weeks and months of the pandemic.

There was also a high level of frustration at the slow response of the government and the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) in addressing the particular needs of people with disability and their families.

“Life for most people with disability and their families is constant juggle at the best of times. Add a global pandemic and lockdown and many of these already precariously balanced lives were thrown into complete turmoil.

“People understand that the pandemic is unprecedented. No one expects government and agencies to get everything right all the time.

“But what they really needed at such a difficult time was simple and clear communication about what was happening, more support to manage the challenges they were facing and greater flexibility in using their NDIS funding so they could get what they needed to stay safe and well.

“And what the survey results show is unfortunately this is not what many people received.”

Updated

Katharine Murphy has written some thoughts on Scott Morrison’s responses today in regards to aged care.

My brain was broken fairly early on from that ABC interview, but Murph, as always, manages to put together the issues perfectly:

Before we get into responsibilities in the federation, just a basic point of logic. If it is fair to argue that Covid-19 got into aged care facilities because Daniel Andrews failed to stop community transmission, then it is also fair to argue about whether the commonwealth did enough to fortify residential aged care facilities against the incoming threat.

If Australia’s health systems are connected, as the prime minister correctly suggests, then the performance of every tier of government is in focus during a pandemic.

Accountability isn’t selective. It doesn’t stop at the Victorian border. It goes all the way to Canberra. If Andrews is responsible, then so is Morrison. You can’t invent a world where someone else is responsible and you aren’t.

Just for the record, the federal government funds and regulates aged care. This is a commonwealth responsibility.

You can read the rest of that, here:

Updated

AAP has an update on what is happening in New Zealand:

Jacinda Ardern has doubled the defence force personnel serving at New Zealand’s border regime after days of sustained criticism of running a lax testing regime.

The military involvement is being doubled to around 1,200 personnel; the country’s largest deployment since providing support for East Timor’s transition to independence two decades ago.

In a much tamer mission, defence force personnel will provide support and security at hotels where international arrivals are undergoing their mandatory fortnight of isolation.

They will replace private security.

Another 80 military personnel will assist customs at international ports, 70 more will assist police with traffic management, and a further 100 will help provide “electoral support” around the country’s 17 October election.

The Labour leader has faced steady criticism in recent days after investigative reporting revealed regular testing at isolation facilities was not occurring.

Ardern agreed testing was “not being executed at the scale and speed necessary”.

“This extra support should give them extra confidence that we’re supporting the Ministry of Health to undertake what is a significant job,” she said.

On Wednesday, health officials announced five new community cases of Covid-19, with a sixth case identified within managed isolation.

Ardern called that “encouraging”.

“At this stage we are not seeing a surge in community cases. We have not seen any new cases outside of that identified Auckland cluster ... and the perimeter of the virus is not exponentially,” she said.

The cluster size has now reached 75, with a majority of those to have caught Covid-19 under 40 years of age.

Maori and Pasifika are also hugely overrepresented in the cluster, with 64 of the 75 cases.

Health officials have identified 18 households, two workplaces and one church as vectors for the spread of the virus.

The country’s top doctor, Ashley Bloomfield, said 1,983 close contacts had been identified, with 1,861 of them contacted for testing.

Updated

Natasha Stott Despoja is asked about the pandemic impact on women in particular and whether enough is being done to address the imbalances:

Of course infrastructure and a range of other things are important in order to get this country back on its feet.

But through the gender lens – are we looking at the industries that have been hit hardest?

Are we looking at those needed or female-dominated sectors that have proved so valuable to dealing with this pandemic and yet are not being supported?

The idea that childcare workers would be among the first to lose jobkeeper – these issues, surely, are, you know, the subject of what should be a discussion that recognises that gender is absolutely pivotal, so, yes, we can go ... We can reimagine, we can actually use this as an opportunity for a transformative agenda when this comes to economy and society. We can look at sectors and industries in which women are dominant and work how how we can better value them, better recognise them and certainly better remunerate them.

And I think that’s actually not just a broader vision, but will play a role in, you know, the economic stimulus our country will no doubt need.

Natasha Stott Despoja addresses the National Press Club in Canberra today
Natasha Stott Despoja addresses the National Press Club in Canberra today. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Updated

That sound you hear here is the warning alarm going off in Scott Morrison’s brain mid-sentence:

(Via his Studio 10 transcript:)

Sarah Harris: All right, prime minister, we know you’re a busy man this morning. Thank you very much for your time. Maybe you could provide a jelly bean for everyone who gets jabbed?

Morrison: That sounds like a good idea. That sounds like an excellent idea.

Harris: Save a black one for me, they’re the best.

Morrison: I don’t like the, I don’t like those ones. I like the red ones, so, anyway.

Joe Hildebrand: Who likes the black ones? That’s a whole other segment.

Harris: Typical.

Updated

2020 isn’t all bad.

Haigh’s (the best chocolate, I will fight you all on this) has announced it is making gin chocolates, with three Australian distilleries – Adelaide Hills Distillery, Archie Rose Distilling Co and Melbourne Gin.

This is not a sponsored post, or even something from a press release – just exciting news on this dark, dreary Canberra day.

Updated

This sentence could have just cut out ‘to public health advice from’ and it would still make perfect sense.

Paul Karp has an update on just how far the confidentiality surrounding national cabinet actually goes.

Unlike Coag, the prime minister has said that national cabinet deliberations count as cabinet-in-confidence - which means you can’t learn anything, unless the prime minister releases it.

Scott Morrison has no power to extend cabinet confidentiality to his national cabinet meetings with state premiers, Senator Rex Patrick has charged in a first-of-its-kind challenge of the intergovernmental body.

After the prime minister’s department rejected a freedom of information request for minutes of national cabinet meetings explaining its rules, the newly independent senator lodged a review arguing that it is not lawful to make the body a subcommittee of federal cabinet.

The appeal to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner could have wide-ranging ramifications for access to national cabinet documents, and echoes legal advice for the Australian Conservation Foundation that these may not be exempt from FoI.

National cabinet minutes about Australia’s response to Covid-19 include details of hotel quarantine arrangements, which might otherwise be blocked from release even to the Victorian inquiry into the source of the second wave of infections.

I am seeing a bit of “hallelujah, this is the news we have been waiting for” in response to the announcement Australia has signed what amounts to a letter of intent for a vaccine which is promising, but not yet proven.

This is not a magic pudding announcement. It’s paperwork. Towards a very optimistic outcome, yes, but there is no vaccine as yet.

Updated

Natasha Stott-Despoja:

This is a society where the underlying conditions of gender inequality mean that violence against women is often condoned, trivialised, may be considered a private matter, where sexism or boys being boys, is excused and where there is an assumption that men are or should be in control.

So, if we want to stop the violence, we need to think about it as a social problem where the solution is social change, and that is where prevention comes in.

Even with the outpouring of community grief and anger about Hannah Clarke’s murder and the murder of her children, within a few days, another Brisbane woman, Jacqueline Sturgess was killed by her husband only a few suburbs away with a sledgehammer.

He then went to the pub to buy alcohol.

They had two daughters, similar ages to my children, how could we not be haunted by this violence, Australia?

I know that many of you are sickened by the stories and statistics, the body count, the slaughter in the suburbs and I know we cannot go on like this, so does this awful crisis bring an opportunity for change?

I hope so. I believe it does.

Although there is no single cause against violence against women, but the main drivers are, according to research are the trivialisation about violence to women, men’s control or limits to women’s independence, adherence to rigid gender roles and disrespect towards women.

There is a common misconception that drugs or alcohol or mental health or poverty are to blame for this violence but the evidence says that while the factors can compound or intensify this violence, taking drugs or alcohol or being poor does not cause this.

We know that the best way to end the violence is to stop it from happening in the first place.

Natasha Stott Despoja is delivering the National Press Club address. It is based on her book On Violence.

Updated

Labor’s Julie Collins has responded to Scott Morrison’s claims on aged care today:

Joe Biden has been officially designated the Democratic candidate for the November election.

Daniel Andrews was asked why there was the breakdown of infections within private aged care homes, as opposed to public aged care homes.

(The state-run aged homes have not seen anywhere near the issues the private sector is seeing.)

Is Victoria trying to highlight things are better in the state-run sector?

Andrews:

People can make their own judgments, I’m not seeking to make any other point than the facts, and they are the facts and I’ve consistently presented them that way.

And if it’s if it’s OK by you I’ll continue to do that. That is that is the appropriate thing to do.

Just like a public hospital outbreak would be reported, just like a private hospital outbreak, you know, ultimately, it really I don’t know whether we’ve got the time to be reading down into literally every syllable, that the prime minister or I say, trying to find an argument, there is no argument, the only argument is with the virus.

That’s the only argument that matters.

And I’ll be speaking with the PMr later on today actually, and we’ll be talking about lots of things and I’m pretty confident, one thing we won’t be talk about is a syllable by syllable breakdown of the language he uses and the language that I use, because we just don’t have time.

We just don’t have time for that.



NSW Health has put out its official announcement this morning:

Of the seven new cases reported to 8.00pm last night:

  • Two are returned travellers in hotel quarantine – one from overseas and one from Victoria
  • Five are locally acquired, including:
    • One who is a close contact of a previously reported case whose source is still under investigation
    • One case is from South Western Sydney whose source is currently under investigation, and one case is a household contact of this case.
    • One case is from Western Sydney whose source is currently under investigation, and one case is a household contact of this case.

A case has been confirmed since the reporting period, in a patient who attended Liverpool Hospital. Close contacts have been identified and advised to isolate for 14 days, get tested for COVID-19 and monitor for symptoms. Deep cleaning has occurred in areas where the outpatient received care and additional precautionary measures have been taken. This includes COVID-19 testing for staff who worked on the same wards the patient received care when they were infectious. Links to other cases are being investigated.

If you have any cold or flu like symptoms at all, assume it’s COVID-19 until proven otherwise – isolate and get tested right away; don’t delay.

Speaking to Braidwood FM (a NSW town about an hour outside of Canberra, which shall forever be known to me as ‘bakery town’ because of its amazing bakeries) Anthony Albanese was asked whether or not aged care should have been privatised.

That was a decision made under the Howard government, and it’s something you might be hearing a lot more of, once this initial crisis starts to calm:

That’s a decision that was made, of course, by the Coalition Government.

Certainly, when you look at where the problems have been during the pandemic, they have been in private facilities rather than state-run facilities.

The Government has responsibility for regulation of both. So, given that the privatisation has occurred, what we need to make sure is that the Government steps up and regulates it properly.

They do have clear responsibility for this sector.

And at the moment, they simply haven’t been delivering an appropriate level of support. The fact is that it is tragic our elderly Australians, many of them are saying their final goodbyes to their loved ones over the phone and they are having their hands held by aged care workers as they pass.

Dr Nick Coatsworth will give a national update at 3.30

There is a beat of silence in the Victorian press conference and Daniel Andrews makes a joke about having “learnt not to walk away when there is silence” because there will still be more questions.

Right on cue – there is another question.

Updated

Victoria’s health authorities are still working on advice on the Victorian local government elections, which are due to be held in October.

Oh – and Victorian CMO Brett Sutton rejected reports claiming Victoria had half the number of contract tracers than NSW.

Sutton also says that Victoria is getting to a point with case numbers, where it can start issuing alerts of where people newly diagnosed have visited - something the other states have been doing, and he says will be helpful for regional Victoria (which has had less cases) in particular.

Updated

OK. I think that is the main bits from all the press conferences – Scott Morrison’s, Daniel Andrews’s and Gladys Berejiklian’s but I’ll update you with anything I missed in that hour.

Updated

In Victoria, CMO Professor Brett Sutton urges caution on people hanging all their hopes on one vaccine.

He says everyone needs to wait and see what the outcome is – and there is a chance that even if successful, a vaccine may only have low success rates – just 20% of people for instance.

Which is why he says it is important that we spread the vaccine hunt wide, while also investing in our own research.

Updated

Gladys Berejiklian is still worried about virus transmission in south-west and western Sydney:

Let’s make sure we approach the virus logically and a positive way in terms of what we need to do.

If the health advice changes we will take it on board. But all the advice from police and from health says the current settings we have are the right settings. But we also have to accept that these are high-risk activities.

All of us are – any time any of us leave the house, especially if we live in south-west and western Sydney we have to assume we are being exposed to the virus and we have to make that assumption every day.

Which is why I’m asking people and urging people in south-western and western Sydney to get tested and come forward. Because we know the chances of the disease not circulating in the area is zero.

Updated

Looks like Scott Morrison is inching closer to a “show us your border closure evidence” demand from the premiers.

When you put a border in place it is going to impose a lot of cost and a lot of disruption and as the Premiers put those things in place those things need to be thought through and arrangements need to be put in place to mitigate the damage.

Clearly we understand why people are doing it and getting the balance right on that is the explanation that I think premiers, obviously, need to provide.

Updated

In NSW, Gladys Berejiklian is asked why a security guard who is working within the hotel quarantine program, is also allowed to work in public sites, such as the Sydney Markets in Flemington:

Well, can I make this point very clear: it has been a miracle we haven’t had anyone contract the virus in that setting before now.

We’ve welcomed, from overseas, around 48,000 Australians.

We also know that 2,000 people in NSW have acquired the disease from overseas.

So, it’s been a tremendous effort that we haven’t had a case yet.

I’ll get the deputy commissioner to comment on this but we have to accept if you are a police officer or anybody else, you are asked to do multiple things, sometimes high risk, you might be on hotel quarantine one day, border protection the next and another job the next day.

The key message is no matter what job you have, once you feel a symptom, please get tested and stay home for 14 days and that’s what this guard did.

Can I please stress that without divulging too much information that there is no evidence to suggest this person did the wrong thing and did the right thing at all stages. But we have to accept now there are jobs in the community that are higher risk and that’s a reality.

But you also can’t say to someone if you work in a particular environment, you can’t go to a restaurant, you can’t go shopping.

All those things, whether you’re working or going to other venues that is a risk. That is why the message to everybody: No matter where you work, no matter what you do.

If you have a symptom, get tested. If you’re asked to stay home for 14 days, stay home for 14 days. And that is the key message here.

We have to accept whether you’re a health worker, whether you’re a police officer, whether you have another job in society, whilst we live with COVID all of us have to be on guard. All of us have to be careful about what we’re doing. And I’m just, again, relieved that until this point in time, after having processed nearly 48,000 people, that this is the first case.

Updated

In Victoria, Daniel Andrews is asked about the ADF testimony yesterday, that it had personnel on standby for Victoria.

Andrews stands by his previous statements (and that of emergency commissioner Andrew Crisp) that there was no “offer”.

(I told you semantics would be important in this).

Andrews:

With the greatest of respect, the word offer is the key.

Have a look at his statement, have a look at my statements, and they’re in no way inconsistent.

I would again just put it to you, you’re free to ask any questions you like and I’ll answer them as best I can.

But we’ve spent quite a lot of time on this, it is months ago, it, it is not, I think, the most important issue in mind, my judgment, you’re free to make a different judgment, but in my judgment. there is absolutely no inconsistency between what I’ve said, what Commissioner Crisp has said and what was led in evidence of the senate yesterday.

Updated

Gladys Berejiklian encourages mask use in hospitality

There has been another four cases of community transmission in NSW in the last 24 hours.

Masks are still not mandatory – but they are now being “encouraged” for hospitality workers.

Gladys Berejiklian:

Can we please, in particular, encourage hospitality venues, so people who work in cafes, restaurants, hotels, clubs, to make sure their staff are encouraged to wear masks.

The take-up has been pretty positive in the last few weeks but that is an area we would like to see people wearing masks. Obviously, to protect the staff, but also to protect the patrons.

Because unlike other venues where there might be casual contacts, if you’re in one of those venues you’re likely to be there for a longer period of time and we want to make sure the staff and patrons are given every opportunity to protect themselves from the virus spreading and that is critical and important.

Again, NSW continues to hold the line. We continue to make sure we reduce the spread as much as possible.

But as was reported yesterday, and as Dr Chant has been saying, we do have around 15 or 16 cases that we’ve experienced in the last six weeks that still don’t have a confirmed source. They are part of the same strain but they don’t have a confirmed source as to where the virus was acquired.

Updated

Now we head to NSW.

This is the most travel any of us will be allowed to do for months, so I hope you’re enjoying this whip around the country.

Scott Morrison is asked again about that criticism from Peter Rozen:

What we will continue to do is provide the facts to the royal commission about these issues.

Of course, there was a plan.

A plan that had been refreshed. And there is no complacency on the government’s part.

And I think the fact that we increased funding for aged care every year by a billion dollars, in fact more now every single year, goes to our acknowledgement of the real needs here.

Solving the issues in aged care is a very different problem because as I’ve said to you many times, the challenges have changed.

When people are going into aged care facilities now - and I know this from personnel experience - families are making a decision about pre-palliative care.

That wasn’t the case 10 years ago. There was a much longer period of time people would be in those facilities before they suffered acute needs so the clinical support that is provided in aged care facilities has changed quite a lot. And that goes to the sort of staffing that’s required.

And it goes to the models that are put in place for how facilities can operate both in the not prophet sector, the private sector, the public sector but they all have very significant problems in aged care - all of them have.

So it is not the time to get into an ideological debate about aged care. It is about what the residents need and how government can better support the needs of our elderly residents. And I said to ensure they’re treated with a culture of respect. They need our respect.

And that respect needs to be shown in the way we care for them in those facilities.

Given the counsel assisting the royal commission into aged care has been pretty scathing of the federal government’s role in responding to the pandemic, Scott Morrison is asked if he still has confidence in the royal commission:

Sure, look, I have faith in the Aged Care Royal Commission. I called it. I called it.

And I called it because I wasn’t happy with what was happening in aged care and I wasn’t getting the answers that I needed to get as a Prime Minister so I could look Australians in the eye about what was happening in aged care facilities and the Aged Care Royal Commission is a key element of how we’re responding.

Now, it’s not the only thing that is occurring and we won’t still the final report with the actions that we’re taking.

Already we’ve announced significant funding, particularly for in-home aged care support places.

We’ve been doing that for many years now. The Budget will do that again.

On top of that, issues about how medications are administered in aged care facilities.

There’s been responses that have been provided to that and equally that has become very relevant in the management of the pandemic response as well.

And so, actions will continue to be taken to address issues, but the broader structural issues, I would hope the Aged Care Royal Commission will be able to give us some important insight into that and that Aged Care Royal Commission will be handed down before next year’s budget which will give us the opportunity, I think, to provide a comprehensive response at that time.

So, yes, I do. But, you know, the royal commission, people will appear before it, people will make assertions before it.

People will tell stories, their own stories and it will be hard for Australians and Prime Ministers to accept, both current and former.

(The Coalition has been in power since 2013 and has had three prime ministers since then. The person making the ‘assertions’ the prime minister is referring to - the assertions being the federal government had not prepared the sector and still had not prepared it - was the counsel assisting the royal commission, Peter Rozen QC, not some lad on social media)

Daniel Andrews is asked about Scott Morrison’s comments this morning that Victoria is responsible for the Victorian aged care response, as it is a public health matter (aged care is a federal responsibility)

Andrews:

I’m not interested in getting into a process where I try and interpret for you, comments from the Prime Minister. It might surprise you, but I’ve not seen the comments he’s made I’ve been briefed in general terms, but I did not see [the comments]

...Well, the only attack that matters is our collective attack against this virus, that’s what I’m focused on, and that hasn’t changed and it won’t change in terms of age care what I can say to you is that we have been asked to provide support and assistance, we’re doing that. I don’t have a number of shifts today but it was getting very close to 2000 chiefs yesterday of hospital nurses that have nothing to do with private aged care going in. We’ve got a joint command, we’re all working together as best we possibly can

Back to Scott Morrison, the prime minister is asked about the indexation freeze on payments, including the pension:

That goes to how they’re indexed. This is one of those issues that comes in a pandemic. You don’t expect those indices to go negative and as a result budgets and others have been prepared on the basis of them going negative. This is new information that came through yesterday.

You’ll know some $1,500 has been paid to pensioners this year as part of the pandemic response and that was done in July and April. So already pensioners have received two bonus payments so far this year but the Treasurer and I will work through those issues. It was not intended and nor will it be the case that you’ll see those payments reduce we’ll work out the exact response and the circumstances and we’ll announce that when a decision is made

Brett Sutton says he wouldn’t be looking at things that closely – and that not all issues are immediately apparent.

I have a policy view, I don’t think that people should be too constrained in that would put their safety at risk in terms of being able to get out and exercise, again I’m happy to hear you know we’re always going to hear reflections from the community, what it means to them in a practical sense.

A lot of these things have been done with literally 150 pages of legal directions to work through. And so they’ll always be elements that come to us after the fact, I’m happy to look at them in detail.

Updated

Possible (small) changes to Victorian driving restictions

Back in Victoria, chief medical officer Brett Sutton is asked about people being able to walk three kms to their local park to exercise, but not drive.

He says that may change:

Well, we are, we are aware that people have talked about that as an unreasonable constraint, I’m happy to talk to the chief Commissioner of Police Shane Patton, about what the threshold should be for that I don’t want anyone to feel unsafe getting to a place of exercise. If we can if we can make revisions around the directions if that’s required, I’m happy to do that but it might just be a matter of clarifying interpretation with the chief commissioner.

Updated

But despite pointing the finger at the states, in this case, Victoria, Scott Morrison insists he is leaving the blame game to others.

(His words would suggest otherwise, but you could argue that until you are blue in the face and not get a response other than ‘I’m focused on the now’)

Scott Morrison:

I’m focused on what needs to happen now, what needs to happen tomorrow.

There will be plenty – including the media, appropriately, and the Parliament and others – that will go into the issues of causation.

The issues around quarantine and tracing are well known. There’s no profit in me going over and raking over those issues.

My job, the premier’s job, today is to keep working together, to deal with what is in front of us, what the needs are right now, and to keep focusing on that task.

National Cabinet will focus on that again this Friday. The Premier and I are in regular contact.

We not getting caught up in those issues.

We’re focus odd on what we need to agree today, what we need to do today to mitigate the risk and impact, particularly on Melburnians and Victorians.

I will say with the numbers we’re seeing out of Melbourne and Victoria, that I am encouraged.

I think the sacrifice that has had to be made by Melburnians and Victorians more broadly is paying off and we are seeing, we have seen, I think, that corner turn and that, I hope is of great encouragement to Victorians.

There is still past way to go yet and there is still some difficult news as we continue to see the most vulnerable in our community fall victim to that virus and there will be more of that news to come, as we’ve warned, but I’m encouraged by progress that’s been made and the partnership efforts in place, whether it’s the ADF, whether it’s emergency management Australia, whether it’s nurses from Townsville and Western Australia and South Australia, contact tracers and testing equipment in as main yeah, the national resource, state and federal, has been turned to support Victoria and that’s our approach.

Updated

Back to Scott Morrison for a moment – he has been asked about aged care, and whether or not he attaches himself to successes, but falls back on ‘it’s the state’s responsibility’ when things go bad (I’ll let you be the judge of that)

Q: We have a national royal commission into aged care, you say there’s federal responsibility, Daniel Andrews keeps saying it’s a federal responsibility. Is there an element here of you being happy to own the successes when it comes to dealing with the pandemic but not the failures?

Morrison:

I think that’s an unkind assessment, and it doesn’t bear out the facts.

There is a combination of challenges we have with the pandemic.

There is a public health issue and there is a specific aged care issue and that’s where responsibilities merge.

And when have you a community outbreak like we’ve had in Victoria, that’s where those responsibilities do overlap.

Certainly, we have had to lead the response in responding to the community outbreak in Victoria, but I think the best demonstration that this is a shared responsibility is the formation of the response centre.

It’s a combined effort of Victorian and commonwealth officials.

We understand our responsibilities and we will be responsible for those, but when have you a community pandemic, the virus will find its way into many places.

It can find its way into shopping centres. It can find its way into workplaces. It can find its way potentially into schools but thankfully that hasn’t been a significant issue here in Australia and many other places and so it’s the overlapping of public health responsibilities which sit with states and federal aged care regulation responsibilities sit with the federal government so, yes, it is a complex set of responsibilities and they are shared and that’s why we’re working together.

I keep stressing – working together, not against each other, is the way we manage these impacts. And so all I said this morning, I think, to take a very binary approach to this, I think is overly simplistic and doesn’t let Australians know the complexity of responsibilities that are here.

Updated

Reporters have probed Morrison about whether the deal with Astra Zeneca is iron-clad and what the cost implications might be.

Morrison said the cost is “commercial in confidence” - as is whether money has already changed hands.

He said:

“We’re at the letter of intent stage, which will lead to an agreement which goes to supply and pricing ... They will be contracts we will be entering into.”

Morrison also confirmed that other countries are further along in signing agreements to get the Oxford vaccine. He dismissed concerns Astra Zeneca could drive a hard bargain, telling reporters negotiations are in “good faith”, he is not concerned, and the company is “not looking to profiteer”.

Acting chief medical officer, Paul Kelly, asked why he was only cautiously optimistic two weeks ago. He confirmed this is still his position, but even in the last two weeks there have been promising trials of the vaccine candidate on primates.

The Astra Zeneca is the “first of many”, Kelly says, in addition to the $5m the federal government gave to support the University of Queensland research. He likened it to diversifying an investment portfolio.

NSW announces seven new coronavirus cases

Just ducking to NSW for a moment: there have been another seven cases recorded – two are returned travellers.

From AAP:

NSW health authorities have reported seven new coronavirus infections in the 24 hours to 8pm yesterday from more than 19,000 tests. One of those cases is a hotel quarantine security guard whose positive result was announced yesterday. Two are returned travellers in hotel quarantine.

Genome sequencing has linked the guard’s infection to a returned traveller who was in quarantine at the Marriott and tested positive on August 2. The guard worked at Sydney’s Flemington Markets and Parramatta Local Court while infectious.

Updated

There has been a “workplace inspection blitz” in Victoria – 724 workplaces have been visited since 19 July – and 62 notices have been issued.

Since the pandemic began, there have been 4911 businesses visited, and 168 notices issued in total.

Updated

On infections in aged care and the NDIS, Daniel Andrews says:

In aged care, as at the 19th, the total number of cases associated with aged care facility outbreaks since 1 January, is 3,337, of which 2,050 are active cases.

To give you some further breakdown of active cases, 5 of those are in public sector aged care and 2,045 of those are in private sector aged care.

Similarly, as you would expect, in terms of outbreaks, there are 120.

Six of those outbreaks with two co-located on the one premises, are in public-sector aged care and 114 of those are in private sector aged care.

In disability, there are 79 active cases in those disability facility settings, as at the 19th.

79 cases, of which 19 are in transfer facilities - so facilities across to the NDIS - 60 that are actual NDIS services and I know there was one in a state-run facility.

There’s no zero.

So that means that of the 60 outbreaks, that’s 79 cases, of the 60 outbreaks, it is 19 in transfer and 41 in NDIS. Total staff cases, 60, total resident cases, 19. And all 19 of those are in NDIS services.

So that is just 16,000 tests yesterday - less than the 17,000 which raised concerns that there weren’t enough tests the day before.

Daniel Andrews press conference

Daniel Andrews begins with the daily breakdown of the most recent numbers:

I’m saddened to have to report that there are now 363 Victorians who have passed away because of this global pandemic, an increase of 12 since yesterday’s update.

Our thoughts and prayers and best wishes are with the families of those 12 people and we wish them well at this very difficult time.

The information I can provide you is that three of those 12 are males in their 70s.

Four females and one male in their 80s.

Three females and one male in their 90s. All of these deaths are linked to aged care outbreaks.

There are 675 Victorians in hospital, 45 of those receiving intensive care. 29 of those 44 are on a ventilator. A total of 2,008,630 tests have been processed, which is an increase of 16,109 tests since yesterday and I’ll return to testing in just a moment.

There are 3,751 casewise an unknown source - mystery cases.

That’s an increase of 82 since yesterday’s report.

That’s 82 closed out at the conclusion of that investigative process.

There are 1,065 health care workers who are active cases.

There are 2,050 active cases in aged care settings and 7,155 active cases across the state.

Updated

Paul Karp is going to keep watching the Morrison press conference, while I jump across to Daniel Andrews.

And here is the exchange on the mandatory vaccine, which will now not be mandatory when it first comes out.

Neil Mitchell: Would you be prepared to make the vaccination mandatory?

Scott Morrison: Well, certainly we’ve got to get about 95 per cent and so we’d be applying that as well. Well, I’ll take the medical advice. That’s the obvious answer to that, Neil, but that’s what I would be expecting.

Mitchell: You’d expect it to be mandatory?

Morrison:

I would expect it to be as mandatory as you can possibly make. There are always exemptions for any vaccine on medical grounds, but that should be the only basis. I mean, we’re talking about a pandemic that has destroyed the global economy and taken the lives of hundreds of thousands all around the world and over 430 Australians here. So, you know, we need the most extensive and comprehensive response to this to get Australia back to normal.

Mitchell: I take your point. We need a high level of uptake. But there’s going to be, I think you’ll get community resistance to mandating it.

Morrison:

Well, we’ll take that issue when it presents both when the clinical trials are finished and we have to understand what the medical issues potentially might be. And that’s why we’ll take advice on its application. But I’m certainly open to that suggestion but that is not a decision the Government has taken.

Updated

Scott Morrison is back on the mandatory nature of the vaccine, that will be, at first, voluntary.

I don’t think offering jelly beans will be the way to do that as you do with kids.

We’ll take it one step at a time but we’ll take those issues as they present and consider what steps are necessary at that time.

I’ll be encouraging others to do the responsible thing, for the sake of community health.

The rollout of this will depend on clinical advice as well. We have to wait for the clinical trials to identify any vulnerabilities in communities.

The obvious priority is around health workers and people like that.

I think it’s fairly apparent. But we’ll be guided, of course, by Professor Kelly and our other specialists to roll out that program.

Updated

Professor Paul Kelly also speaks about the mandatory vaccine program and mentions that at first, it will be voluntary.

Of course, the first will be a voluntary call for people and I’m sure there will be long queues - socially distanced, of course - for this vaccine.

It will be incredibly welcomed by many.

It will be the absolute ticket to get back to some sort of normal society and the things we all love and enjoy. I think there will will be strong take-up of the vaccine.

There will be some who, for medical reasons, as the PM said, may not be able to take the vaccine, but there will be very strong campaigns to encourage people and we’ve had experience before of linking vaccinations with other programs and all of those things will be looked at over time.

The first thing we have to have a vaccine that works and is safe. That’s the point.

How will Scott Morrison make any forthcoming vaccine mandatory?

This is like any vaccine and, as you know, I have a pretty strong view on vaccines, being the Social Services Minister that introduced no jab, no play.

What is important to understand with any of these vaccines is it does protect you, it does protect you but it also protects the community and, as is the case with any vaccine, there will be some individuals who, for precise medical reasons, can have issues with any vaccine.

They and their safety and their health depends on the vaccine’s take-up more broadly in the community. That’s how they get protected.

And this is an important part of our vaccine strategy, not just on Covid-19, but more broadly. We’ll seek its most widespread application, as we do with all important vaccines.

Just a note – this agreement is a pre-purchase agreement – a letter of intent.

There is still no vaccine. There is no timeline. There are no guarantees it will work.

No shade – but this is a step, not an outcome.

Updated

Professor Paul Kelly says the expert health committee is also working on plans to roll out the vaccine program across Australia.

Acting chief medical officer, Professor Paul Kelly gets the floor:

It’s one of several vaccines that are in development.

As the PM said, over 160 different vaccine candidates are currently in development and in trials and almost 30 of those in trials in humans now.

So this particular vaccine is an unproven technology so far, but the initial results are very positive...so the effectiveness of the vaccine will be trials in larger groups of human trials over the coming months, but the efficacy in terms of developing antibodies against coronavirus has been shown to be true, as well as the safety in the phase 1 and phase 2 trials.

So they’ve been published in peer review journals. They’ve been by other scientists and found to be valid.

That amongst a number of other vaccines developed by other companies and research groups around the world are showing great promise.

This is an important step. It’s the first step in terms of this particular company and this particular vaccine but there will be others in the coming weeks and months. We have a strategy to work through this.

Scott Morrison:

Australia will also play an important role in supporting our Pacific family.

We’ve had the discussions with the prime ministers of Papua New Guinea and Fiji most recently but also when I last spoke to President Widodo, this was also an important topic of discussion. We have a regional role to play here as well as a domestic role to play here and he we will be living up to all of those responsibilities as we progress this day. But today is a day of hope and Australia needs hope, the world needs hope, when it comes to this coronavirus.

And should we be in a position for the trials to be successful, we would hope that this would be made available early next year.

Scott Morrison press conference

The prime minister is standing in front of a lot of people in white coats as he repeats the announcement that Australian has signed an agreement for access to the Oxford University vaccine, if it is successful.

#Update: this update contains no update

It was announced this morning. There have been wall to wall interviews on it. Nothing has changed in those hours.

Scott Morrison will be holding a press conference around the same time as Daniel Andrews.

Despite there being 23 other hours in the day, everyone loves 11am.

It’s 11am for Daniel Andrews’s press conference.

The Australian Unemployed Workers Union has responded to the pension (and other payments) indexation freeeze:

The official vaccine agreement statement is out:

Australians will be among the first in the world to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, if it proves successful, through an agreement between the Australian Government and UK-based drug company AstraZeneca.

Under the deal, every single Australian will be able to receive the University of Oxford COVID-19 vaccine for free, should trials prove successful, safe and effective.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the Oxford University trial was in a phase three stage and more work was needed to prove its viability.

“The Oxford vaccine is one of the most advanced and promising in world, and under this deal we have secured early access for every Australian,” the Prime Minister said.

“If this vaccine proves successful we will manufacture and supply vaccines straight away under our own steam and make it free for 25 million Australians.

“However, there is no guarantee that this, or any other, vaccine will be successful, which is why we are continuing our discussions with many parties around the world while backing our own researchers at the same time to find a vaccine.

“We are taking advice from Australia’s best medical and scientific expertise to ensure that the Government’s work to select, produce and purchase COVID-19 vaccines and treatments is based on the best available knowledge.”

The Prime Minister also remains committed to ensuring early access to the vaccine for countries in our Pacific family, as well as regional partners in Southeast Asia.

The Government has also released Australia’s COVID-19 Vaccine and Treatment Strategy, guided by a group of medical and industry experts.

The Strategy sets out Australia’s approach to acquire doses of safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines based on:

1. Research and development

2. Purchase and manufacturing

3. International partnerships

4. Regulation and safety Immunisation administration and monitoring

The first announcements under the strategy are the signing of a Letter of Intent with AstraZeneca to supply the University of Oxford’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate to Australia and a consumables contract with Becton Dickinson for the supply of needles and syringes.

The Letter of Intent covers vaccine development, production and distribution. It commits to production of the vaccine in Australia, subject to safety and effectiveness.

A final formal agreement will include distribution, timing and price of the vaccine.

Updated

Annastacia Palaszczuk has defended the border controls, which extends to the state’s hospitals:

Where we can cooperate we will. We have got to put the health of Queenslanders and safety of Queenslanders first but where there is an absolute need for a family to access our health care, it will go through the Chief Health Officer.

These are extraordinary times at the moment.

This is not life as usual. There is a global pandemic and we need to protect Queenslanders.

Dr Young has to make very tough decisions because we still know that people from Sydney are travelling into those northern New South Wales parts.

We have to be very cautious.

If someone came into our hospitals who was positive and imagine the ramifications there?

These are very tough decisions but it is because we are in a global pandemic and because there is community transmission in New South Wales.

Given there have been reports of the impact of the Queensland border closure on NSW people – including heart wrenching stories of parents being separated from their ill newborns, here is a story on a new Queensland mum, stranded in Victoria after cancer treatment, because she can’t get permission to travel through NSW to get back home (where she has been granted an exemption to enter)

The border closures are having a terrible impact on a lot of people. It’s awful and heartbreaking.

Dragging politics into it, to score points or prosecute agendas, is disgusting.

Updated

Queensland is working with the Australian Border Force to strengthen its northern border – that would be the ocean – after an increase of Covid cases in Papua New Guinea.

The most recent case of Covid recorded in Queensland today comes from the positive diagnosis of a person who recently returned from PNG (they have been in hotel quarantine), so expect ocean patrols on the northern tip to increase.

Updated

Just a reminder that during the bushfire crisis, Scott Morrison also deflected responsibility to the states.

We’re there to help the states and territories as they address these crises. The states are the ones, as premier knows all too well, who are directly responsible for the funding of their fire services and all the other things that are done.”

Government to provide NDIS Covid data

There have been calls for this for some time but the federal government is finally going to start releasing the data on the number of people within the National Disability Insurance Scheme – both participants and workers – who have Covid.

Stuart Robert:

The reporting will ensure accurate and timely information is being provided to the community. The data is collated through reporting mechanisms of the NDIS Quality and Safeguard Commission and compiled by the Commonwealth’s NDIS Critical Response Group.

The Commonwealth is continuing to work closely with the Victorian Government through its formal representation on the Victorian Government’s Disability Rapid Response Group (DRRG). The Commonwealth has been a formal member of the DRRG since 29 July 2020, attended by the Registrar of the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA)’s Incident Leader and the NDIA’s Specialist Medical Adviser, Dr David Ashbridge.

The DRRG is actively monitoring and rapidly responding to any incidence of COVID-19 amongst all people with disability and service providers, not just those within the NDIS. This includes:

· supported residential settings regulated by the Victorian Government and provided to the NDIS on an in-kind basis (45 per cent of supported residential settings in Victoria)

· Supported Residential Services regulated by the Victorian Government (e.g. Hambleton House, Lilydale Lodge)

· Public, social and community housing provided by the Victorian Government.

Updated

Sabra Lane also asked the prime minister about aged care:

Lane: The aged care royal commission has said that the federal government should be listening to it closely, that you should appoint a dedicated national coordinating body right now to work with all homes to advise them and the government on handling Covid, that you shouldn’t wait. Are you acting on that idea?

Morrison: Well, we already have been. I mean, what we have already in place in Victoria does exactly that, I mean the expertise and experience of geriatricians, to to specialists in diseases and how they transfer in facilities, I mean, that that is the advice we have been taking. And where we need to supplement that, then that will be done. And and that is, they are the things that Professor Murphy and Professor Kelly and his team have been leading now for months.

Lane: Commissioner Pagone, though, said last week that the government could implement this right now, that it was a practical improvement that didn’t need to wait?

Morrison:

Well, that’s what I’m saying. I mean, what they’re suggesting is is effectively already being mirrored in the actions the government is taking. I have no doubt that where Professor Kelly and Professor Murphy need to supplement what’s going on at the moment, then they would certainly do that and they’d do it straightaway.

Updated

Scott Morrison also spoke about his “no jab no play” history with Sabra Lane (although he wasn’t as explicit about it being mandatory).

As people probably know, I’ve been I was the one who introduced ‘no jab, no play’.

I’ve always been very heavily in favour of ensuring we get safe vaccines out in the community*. They save lives and this vaccine will be the same.

But it obviously has to clear all the tests. That’s why we have to be patient to ensure that it does do that. And we have the best medical advice to to authorise that.

*Not sure there would be anyone who would admit to not wanting safe vaccines out in the community, but never miss an opportunity to brand yourself, I guess.

Updated

For more information on the Oxford vaccine you are hearing a lot about today, you can head here:

As Greg Hunt said on the weekend, and Scott Morrison has said today, it is not the only vaccine being worked on, but it is one of the most promising. Australia will be looking at entering agreements with some of the other vaccine developers as well.

There are about 160 vaccines being worked on around the world, which makes the odds of at least a couple of them being successful pretty good.

Queensland’s chief medical officer, Dr Jeannette Young, echoes her NSW and Victorian counterparts when it comes to flu symptoms:

We have very, very little flu in our community at the moment.

We had eight cases last week so, in actual fact, if you got flu-like symptoms, you’re just as likely to have Covid-19 as you are of the flu.

So it’s very important if you have any symptoms at all to immediately come forward, get tested and isolate yourself until you get that result.

Updated

The Queensland health minister, Steven Miles, has some news on another vaccine now being worked on:

The University of the Sunshine Coast is leading Queensland’s part of the clinical trials for a vaccine developed by US vaccine manufacturer Novavax and I congratulate them on their leadership there.

Updated

Goondiwindi is also getting some farmer-border passes.

Annastacia Palaszczuk:

In relation to we have actually expanded some of the postcodes around the Goondiwindi region. This has been a request that has come in from the local council and I want to thank the chief health officer and the deputy premier for acting very swiftly.

These are very small numbers of people and, of course, it’s just to make that movement between those border communities a little bit easier.

We are continuing to work with people when it comes to their health concerns, but also to, when it comes to the movement of agriculture.

We got very strong industry plans in place there. And, of course, these issues will be further discussed

Updated

Queensland reports one new case of coronavirus

Queensland has one new case of Covid – a returned traveller.

Updated

On the no-doubt swift campaign anti-vaxxers will be whirring up as we speak, Scott Morrison says he is “used to it”.

I was the minister that established “no jab, no play” – my view on this is pretty clear and not for turning.

Just a reminder though – while there are promising signs, there is still a wait. First for tests, and then the vaccine has to be rolled out.

Updated

Vaccine to be mandatory, Scott Morrison says

Over on Melbourne radio 3AW, we have learnt something new about the vaccine – Scott Morrison says he expects it to be mandatory:

I would expect it to be as mandatory as you can possibly make it. There are always exemptions for any vaccine on medical grounds but that should be the only basis …

I mean, we’re talking about a pandemic that has destroyed you know, the global economy and taken the lives of hundreds of thousands all around the world and over 450 Australians here.

We need the most extensive and comprehensive response to this to get Australia back to normal.

Updated

Remember the jingle for the Reading Writing Hotline? (1300-6-triple-five-oh-six)

It has been overwhelmed with calls for help during the pandemic:

Calls to the Reading Writing Hotline have soared by 30% since the first Covid-19 lockdown, exposing the thousands of Australians with low literacy, from newly unemployed workers and business owners to parents and the elderly, who are being left behind in an online world.

The surge in callers from April to June includes parents with reading difficulties struggling to teach children at home, workers unable to complete Centrelink forms for income support, and older people needing digital literacy to stay in contact with family and support services.

Reading Writing Hotline Manager Vanessa Iles says the increased calls for help during the pandemic has starkly highlighted the need to reach out to an invisible group of Australians with low literacy, numeracy and digital skills.

“This pandemic has exposed a whole group of Australians whose need for literacy support had been invisible and unaddressed,” says Ms Iles. “Our world has moved online, but those with low literacy have been left utterly isolated.

“Often people who have difficulty reading, writing or using technology manage to get by in daily life. But now their usual coping mechanisms and supports have been ripped away.

“Hotline staff have been spending more time effectively counselling anxious and fearful callers who have found overnight their low literacy is now a barrier to working, accessing income support and simply connecting with their loved ones.”

Updated

We don’t know how many tests that result is from – yesterday it was about 17,000. Authorities want to get about 25,000 tests done daily to make an adequate judgment.

Updated

Victoria reports 216 new cases, 12 deaths

The Victorian health department has released today’s numbers.

Updated

Just in case anyone needed a boost today.

Updated

Here was the exchange on the Nine Network over Victoria.

Karl Stefanovic: Victorians, meantime, I mean, they’re tough. They’re get-on-with-it kind of people, but they have been completely, utterly and hopelessly let down. I don’t know whether it’s lies or incompetence, PM, but the government had three months to prepare Victorians for the second wave and didn’t do enough?

Scott Morrison: Well, there clearly have been many issues there on the tracing, on the quarantine, and I think that’s all becoming very clear. But again, Karl, what I have to focus on is the day to day of ensuring we get on top of this, that the numbers we’re seeing coming out of Victoria on cases is improving. Obviously, the number of deaths we’ve seen is very upsetting and disturbing. And again, our sympathies to all of those families affected. But those numbers look like we’re getting on top of it now. Which is welcome. And we’ve got to stay the course. I want to thank all Melburnians, all Victorians, for the sacrifices they are making. It is making a difference. You are getting on top of it. And today there’s hope because as I said, a free vaccine for all Australians, should that AstraZeneca Oxford University trial prove successful.

Q: I’ll get on to that in just a second. But it’s been revealed last night on Nine news, despite having 30 times, 30 times the cases in New South Wales, Victoria has half the number of contact tracers. I mean, how many times do they need to be failed by their leaders?

Morrison: Well, this is one of the reasons why when we sent Commodore Hill down from the defence forces and one of the key things he was doing was to boost the information systems, ensure that there was better tasking of the tracing capabilities, the tracing arrangements in New South Wales have been outstanding. There’ve been industrial-scale, and I think they’ve been a key reason as to why here in New South Wales, the results, under similar pressures with outbreaks, have been very different. But others will get into those differences. But the tracing capabilities – I always said from the outset, test, trace and contain outbreaks and the tools – they were the three things to fight the virus to to ensure that the economy and the community and society could function with the virus present. And that’s as true in Victoria, as it is in Western Australia, or the Northern Territory, other places where there isn’t an outbreak. But if there is, then testing, tracing and outbreak containment is what enables a community to get through, as New South Wales has demonstrated.

(There are about 2,600 contact tracers working in Victoria at the moment.)

Updated

Scott Morrison also had a chat to the Nine Network, where he spoke about the terrible case of the Lismore mother who was separated from her newborn when her child had to be airlifted to Queensland for emergency medical treatment.

[Annastacia Palaszczuk] has taken her position on that [borders]. We will continue to raise cases with the Queensland government.

The case of that young family out of Lismore who couldn’t be with their young child, I think all of Australians should would have been shaking their head about that. I certainly was.

*Cough mandatory detention for asylum seekers and refugees separating families for years cough*

NSW will hold its press conference at 11am.

Updated

After doing all the major breakfast shows, Scott Morrison is headed to AstraZeneca – the British pharmaceutical company the government has signed the Covid vaccine agreement with – for a tour.

Updated

Oh look – it seems as though some money is being released for the arts and entertainment industry.

From Paul Fletcher:

Screen producers can now access the $50 million Temporary Interruption Fund (TIF), which opens today to help kick-start the local film and television industry.

Minister for Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts the Hon. Paul Fletcher MP, said TIF will support local film and television producers to start filming again. At the moment many new productions are in limbo because financiers will not release funds because of their concern that production may be interrupted if a key cast or crew member falls ill due to COVID-19.

“If a production is designated by Screen Australia as eligible under TIF this will allow financiers to release funds so production can commence,” Minister Fletcher said.

Updated

Honestly, it is still as flabbergasting the third time around.

Queensland and NSW scrap over border hospitals

Queensland and NSW are having a spat after Annastacia Palaszczuk said “we have Queensland hospitals for our people” as the border closure continues to impact people who live in the Tweed and northern NSW.

The Gold Coast and Brisbane across the border are the major centres for those Tweed and northern NSW communities. So the border closure is presenting some major issues.

Palaszczuk is about to fight an election. So she has ramped up the rhetoric. The ABC reports her as saying: “In Queensland, we have Queensland hospitals for our people,” which has “astonished” the NSW health minister, Brad Hazzard.

He has responded by releasing figures on how many Queenslanders have sought treatment at the Tweed hospital – about 6,000 in the last year.

It would probably be easier for everyone to calm their farms, let medical professionals talk to each other and use some common sense, but we are at the political end of this stuff, so that is probably just a pipe dream.

Annastacia Palaszczuk at a press conference
Annastacia Palaszczuk speaks at a press conference. Photograph: Dan Peled/AAP

Updated

Once again, in case you missed it, this was Scott Morrison’s answer, when asked if the buck stopped with him, when it came to failings in aged care during this pandemic.

We regulate aged care, but when there is a public health pandemic, then public health, whether it gets into aged care, shopping centres, schools or anywhere else, then they are things that are for Victoria. So I don’t think that it is as binary as you suggest.

Translation – the federal government regulates it, but in a health pandemic, those are things for the states.

Cool.

Updated

In Queensland, authorities are waiting on the results of a fourth Covid test for a resident at Immanuel Gardens in Buderim on the Sunshine Coast, an aged care home operated by Lutheran Services.

Three other residents who were displaying respiratory symptoms returned a negative test yesterday. The fourth resident was tested later, after displaying symptoms.

All four people were immediately put into isolation and the centre was shut down, and hopefully we all see a fourth negative test there soon.

Updated

There are still thousands of Australians overseas who are trying to fly home.

That got really complicated in the last few months. Not only are arrivals into Australia capped, and individuals responsible for their own hotel quarantine costs – actually getting on a flight is a problem as well.

Elias Visontay has been following that saga – here is his latest:

Planes flying into Australia are carrying as few as four economy passengers, as airlines frustrated with the government’s international arrival cap begin to acknowledge they are prioritising business passengers and more expensive tickets to remain profitable while complying with the limits.

Some flights are restricted to as few as 30 passengers under the government’s restrictions on arrivals.

On Tuesday a spokeswoman for Qatar Airways – one of the few remaining airlines to fly to Australia – told the Guardian that when finalising passenger lists to make sure each flight complied with the limits the airline considered the “commercial value” of tickets.

“In order to ensure the continued viability of our operations to Australia, [the] commercial value of tickets sold must also be taken into consideration to be able to operate each flight.”

She said the airline continued to assess each passenger “on an individual basis regardless of what cabin class they have booked” when considering priority travel and compassionate grounds.

Updated

So that would be a no, then.

Just as his “apology” was for failings in “the” system, which is a piece of verbal distancing, that answer put the responsibility back with Victoria.

Apparently, there is nothing to be done when there is pandemic. Except there is, and there could be, and we just see responsibility passed around like a bag of chips.

Updated

Scott Morrison cites 'shared responsibilities' when asked about aged care failures

We are motoring through the issues in this interview.

Next up – ultimate responsibility for stuff-ups.

Michael Rowland: Daniel Andrews, the Victorian premier, says the buck stops with him when it comes to the hotel quarantine bungle. Does the buck stop with you as prime minister for the litany of aged care failures?

Scott Morrison: Well, there are shared responsibilities for public health which is a matter there.

Rowland: It’s a federal responsibility.

Morrison:

We regulate aged care, but when there is a public health pandemic, then public health, whether it gets into aged care, shopping centres, schools or anywhere else, then they are things that are for Victoria.

So I don’t think that it is as binary as you suggest.

Updated

Then there is a small serve to premiers’ who have closed their borders. (Not all the premiers though, as you can guess.)

Scott Morrison:

I understand the decisions that have been taken. They’ve obviously been discussed at national cabinet on many occasions and I’ve had many discussions with premiers about them. The cases in different states are very different.

Obviously, the New South Wales and Victorian border was a discussion that I was directly involved in with both premiers and we’ve been quite involved in supporting both of the states to ensure that those borders work as best as they can.

They’re incredibly disruptive, though, and I appreciate the work, particularly New South Wales has done recently, in making things a bit more workable, particularly for those working in the agricultural sector.

I’m working with all of those premiers who have borders at the moment on ensuring that Australians can get medical access. I thank Premier Marshall for the work he’s done with me, as well as the New South Wales premier most recently.

We’re dealing with those on a case-by-case basis and making some progress there.

I understand what they’re seeking to do, but it’s important that all premiers act on the basis of transparent medical advice.

You know, if there’s going to be these border arrangements in place, they will, of course, have very serious impacts on the economies of their states and the livelihoods of those who live in those states and businesses and jobs.

And that all has to be weighed up. And that’s the decisions they’re taking and they need to be transparent with the Australian people about it.

Scott Morrison
Scott Morrison says border closures are ‘incredibly disruptive’. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

Updated

What is plan B for Australia while we wait for a vaccine, Scott Morrison is asked:

Well, to continue to live positively with the virus, to ensure that we can establish our economy and society as much as is normally possible. And that’s why having a Covid-safe economy and Covid-safe community is important. That’s why having testing, tracing and outbreak capacity capabilities are so critical to enable Australians to get on with their lives.

We are working towards and hoping for and planning and preparing for a vaccine, but equally, at the same time, you need to ensure that you can reopen your economy and you can get on top of the outbreaks that are there.

I mean, New South Wales has led the way in containing outbreaks.

We’ve obviously had terrible events in Melbourne and Victoria, but very pleased to see that that corner is turning in Victoria, and that’s welcome news. Although there’s still many weeks ahead of us yet.

Updated

Scott Morrison, chatting to the ABC, says the vaccine deal “will give us the option to be at the front of the pack and to be able to manufacture the vaccine here and make it available to all Australians”.

The timing of that is still certain at this point, but we would hope early next year. If it can be done sooner than that, then even better. But this is the most promising, I’m advised. And in my discussions with other leaders around the world, particularly in Europe, they’re forming a similar view.

Updated

In case you missed it yesterday, the government has confirmed that for the first time in 25 years, there will be no indexation for the pension until March 2021. Meaning – no pension increase.

It’s not just the pension. A lot of other payments, including the disability support pension, carer payment and jobseeker, won’t be seeing increases either.

The news comes amid record unemployment within Australia. And people withdrawing money out of their super funds.

Linda Burney from Labor had a bit to say about it this morning:

Pensioners have been facing rising health, dental, energy and grocery bills for years. And now they are set to go a full year without payment being indexed.

With interest rates at record lows, pensioners with modest savings are facing a double whammy.

Average GP out-of-pocket costs alone have gone up by $11 under this government.

Cutting the pension is in the Liberal-National DNA. This Government has tried to cut the pension or increase the pension age to 70 in every single budget – and they have cut $1 billion from pensioner concessions.

Updated

Good morning

There’s good news to start off with this morning, after the government announced it had reached an agreement with the British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca to supply Australians with the University of Oxford Covid-19 vaccine – assuming it clears clinical trials.

As Katharine Murphy reports:

The vaccine agreement also includes a $24.7m contract with the medical technology company Becton Dickinson for the supply of needles and syringes to make sure there is sufficient supply on hand to roll out the vaccine nationally.

Scott Morrison says Australia has pursued the Oxford vaccine because it is “one of the most advanced and promising in the world”. But the prime minister says Australia will continue negotiations with other parties.

“There is no guarantee that this, or any other, vaccine will be successful, which is why we are continuing our discussions with many parties around the world while backing our own researches at the same time to find a vaccine,” Morrison said.

So still some time away, but a silver lining. The government then has to work out who gets it first – at this point, it is the most vulnerable, so people over 65 will be among the first on the list.

Closer to home, NSW authorities are urgently trying to work out how a security guard at a health hotel at Circular Quay was infected with Covid-19.

Late yesterday afternoon the state’s chief health officer, Dr Kerry Chant, announced genomic testing on the guard’s infection showed it was similar to “one identified in a guest staying at the hotel from 31 July to 5 August”.

As NSW Health reports:

The strain is different to other strains circulating in NSW. This indicates that the guard likely acquired the infection while at the hotel. Exactly how the infection was acquired is under investigation.

The people who may have been close contact with the guard while infectious have already been contacted and placed in isolation.

He was infectious at the following times locations and alerts have already been issued urging people at these venues on these dates to get tested:

  • Sydney Market Flemington on Sunday, 9 August between 8am and 4pm.
  • Parramatta Local Court on Tuesday, 11 August and Wednesday, 12 August between 8.30am and 12.30pm.

NSW Health is working closely with both cases, the Police, the security company, hotel staff and other staff to investigate how the infection may have been acquired.

That’s the two major stories today. We’ll keep you updated on everything that happens. The prime minister will be doing the rounds this morning – having a vaccine announcement tends to kickstart the media circuit – so we will bring you that, and anything else you need to know. You have Amy Remeikis with you for most of the day.

Ready?

Updated

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Simply the best: A connoisseurs guide to the finest Belgian chocolate this Easter
Eggs have been a long-standing symbol for Easter, but when did chocolate enter the holiday scene? Rebecca Spezzano has been on the streets of Brussels to discover the secrets of luxury handmade Belgian chocolate.
Euronews
Euronews
Nearly a century of wondering: The American UFO saga, in reality and in fiction
UFOs have intrigued people for decades, with sightings and investigations dating back to the first widely reported one in 1947
The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Footage Of Christopher Nolan At Universal CityWalk Hollywood Is Going Viral, And The Context Is Even Better
He wasn't there for the Voodoo Doughnuts.
Cinemablend
Cinemablend
Do Not Try This Egg Trend USDA and FDA Warn It Could Make You Sick
Social media platforms are filled with creative cooking hacks. Users share fast recipes and unique visual tricks to make meal prep entertaining. Sometimes these viral trends cross the line into dangerous territory. A recent breakfast trend is gaining millions of views online. Parents are freezing raw eggs in the shell…
Grocery Coupon Guide
Grocery Coupon Guide
Woman has parallel parking anxiety when she notices what all the men around her are doing: ‘My worst fear’
Ugh, we'd be mortified.
We Got This Covered
We Got This Covered
Amazon Nearly Made Eric Kripke Pull An Episode Of The Boys Last Season. So, What Happened?
This story is wild.
Cinemablend
Cinemablend
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.
Download on the AppStore Get it on Google Play