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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Elias Visontay (now), Michael McGowan and Calla Wahlquist (earlier)

Tasmania records first Covid-19 case since May – as it happened

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What we learned: Monday, 20 July

That is where I will leave you tonight. Thanks for reading.

Here’s what we learned today:

  • Victoria recorded 275 new coronavirus cases and one death overnight. There are now 2,913 active cases in the state.
  • The daily figures were announced after the inquiry into the handling of the Victoria’s hotel quarantine program began, which heard that every coronavirus case currently in Melbourne could be linked back to the program.
  • New South Wales recorded 20 new Covid-19 cases, the highest daily number in several months. One of the Covid-19 cases in NSW is in their 30s. There are now 48 cases linked to the Crossroads Hotel cluster.
  • NSW will tighten its border restrictions with Victoria from midnight tomorrow, limiting the reasons people can cross into NSW. Premier Gladys Berejiklian also said she looked forward to receiving a letter from Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk about moving the border checkpoint between the two states south, into NSW, to avoid congestion for border communities.
  • Australia’s student visa system will be overhauled to allow students from all countries to apply for a visa outside Australia and to provide extra time for English language results, as part of a push to restart Australia’s international education.
  • Tasmania has recorded its first Covid-19 case since 8 May. A young woman who has been in hotel quarantine after returning to Tasmania from Victoria was diagnosed on Monday and is in hospital receiving treatment.

Updated

Tasmania records new Covid-19 case

A spokesman for the Tasmanian health department has told Guardian Australia the state has recorded a new case of coronavirus, a young woman who has been in hotel quarantine after returning to Tasmania from Victoria.

The department said:

This brings the state’s total to 227 cases. The woman is currently receiving treatment at the Royal Hobart hospital, and public health services are conducting contact tracing.

Further information will be provided tomorrow.

Updated

Bondholders owed $2bn by Virgin Australia have announced they have the funds to put together a rival bid for the stricken airline to its creditors at a meeting next month.

It comes after a federal court hearing earlier this month where counsel for the group of bondholders, Ian Jackman SC, raised concerns that a sale to US private equity group Bain Capital was being treated as a “fait accompli” by the administrators.

In a statement released today, a spokesman for the bondholders group said:

The bondholders group today submitted to the Virgin administrator a draft DOCA proposal, which is substantially the same as the recapitalisation proposal submitted last month. We have the funds and the ability to implement this proposal and firmly believe that our proposal represents the best option for Virgin Australia, its employees, creditors, stakeholders and the Australian community.

Engagement with Virgin management, unions, lessors and other stakeholders is a priority for the bondholders, starting this week. We are seeking to work cooperatively and constructively with the administrator and believe that Deloitte is well placed to assist with access to stakeholders and information ahead of the second creditors’ meeting in August to enable the DOCA to be finalised.”

Updated

As Victoria has been trying to contain its second wave of Covid-19 cases, many contact tracers from NSW have been assisting the state.

But with cases growing in NSW, Guardian Australia asked NSW Health whether those staff would be needed to focus on the situation there, leaving Victoria short once again. A single case of Covid-19 can generate anywhere from a few to over 100 close contacts.

But NSW Health’s director of contact tracing, Carolyn Murray, said NSW staff had been working remotely from their home state to assist Victoria, and there were still plenty of staff on hand to help both states manage.

Our team is agile and flexible, and we increase and decrease our capacity based on need to provide that additional support to public health units; this changes depending on how many infections there are.

An associate professor of public health at Melbourne’s La Trobe University, Hassan Vally, said contact tracing was a difficult and specialised task, and experienced contact tracers were a vital resource.

Having said that, however, we can train contact tracers as well as deploy contact tracers from other states to assist in the response.

I would call it both an art and a science and good contract tracers are a valued resource. You need good rational thinking as well as good people skills. And on top of that you need good sleuthing skills.

He said depending on how long a person with illness may have been infectious, this could be a very time-consuming task.

There is a theoretical point where you have too many cases to be able to contact trace and try and interrupt the transmission of the virus and in many ways this is a point that we don’t want to get to with this virus.

Once you get to this point you are basically saying that you can’t interrupt transmission by tracking and tracing cases, and that takes out of the equation of one of the most powerful tools we have to control the spread of the virus.

Given the resources we have in Australia, and the fact that contract tracers work on the phone and so we can deploy these skilled personnel from other states and we can train others, we are not anywhere near this point.”

Updated

NSW Health has issued a directive for anyone who attended Our Lady of Lebanon cathedral in Sydney’s Harris Park.

Anyone who attended on these dates is required to immediately self-isolate for 14 days and come forward for testing even if they are not experiencing any symptoms:

Wednesday 15 July – 5.30pm mass
Thursday 16 July – 6pm mass
Friday 17 July – 1pm funeral and 6pm mass

Our Lady of Lebanon cathedral, Harris Park.
Our Lady of Lebanon cathedral, Harris Park. Photograph: James D Morgan/Getty Images

A NSW Health statement said:

Anyone who has attended the church since 15 July outside of these specific times should also closely monitor for symptoms and get tested if they begin to feel unwell, no matter how mild the symptoms.

The alert has been issued after a confirmed case linked to the Thai Rock restaurant cluster attended the church on the four occasions outlined prior to being diagnosed.

Two additional cases, parishioners who also attended services on these days, have now also returned a positive result for Covid-19, both of whom are in isolation.

Western Sydney local health district is setting up a pop-up clinic in the car park of the cathedral from tomorrow for the next four days from 9am to 4.30pm. Clinics are also available at Stocklands Merrylands and Auburn Community Health Centre and walk-in clinics are available at Westmead, Blacktown and Mount Druitt hospitals.

Updated

'Treat face masks like underwear'

Victorians are being urged to treat their face masks like underwear amid a mad dash for supplies, according to AAP:

Swinburne University of Technology’s dean of health science, Bruce Thompson, said the same rules for undies should apply: have many and/or wash often.

“Assume your mask is like underwear. So don’t take it off in the middle of public. Don’t fiddle with it in the middle of public, don’t share them with somebody else,” he said.

“The concept of actually taking your underwear off in public and putting them on a kitchen bench is horrible – but that’s effectively what you are doing.”

He recommended having six to 12 masks ready for use on rotation, just as a person would with underwear.

“Masks are important and they are basically another tool in the armoury ...,” he said. “The only way for the virus to actually spread is it has some form of human-to-human contact, either direct touching or via a droplet or something like that because someone is in very close proximity to them.”

The positive test rate in Victoria on any given day is about 1%, which equates to three times the national average, he said.

The run on masks comes as authorities confirmed face coverings or masks would become mandatory in public across metropolitan Melbourne and the Mitchell shire from midnight on Wednesday.

Examples of face masks in a Melbourne shop.
Examples of face masks in a Melbourne shop. Photograph: Darrian Traynor/Getty Images

Although scarves and bandanas will be accepted the demand for surgical and reusable cloth masks rose overnight.

Google data showed search interest for “face mask” grew to a new high this week, peaking sharply around midday on Sunday. The interest value in Google shifted from zero early on Sunday morning to 100 by 2pm.

Volumes over the past seven days have been 63% above the previous weekly peak in mid-March. This online interest has translated into some shops running out of stock across Melbourne.

Retail store Chemist Warehouse said the demand for masks was unprecedented and “many stores ran out of the healthy stocks they had in place” on Sunday. But the pharmacy chain said there was no need to rush, as more stock was to arrive in stores by mid-Monday.

Updated

Australia will recommence granting international student visas and allow current students to count online study while overseas in a push to restart international education.

You can read Paul Karp’s story here:

Updated

And that’s where I will leave you. My colleague Elias Visontay will be with you for the rest of today and into this evening. Thanks as always for reading.

Coatsworth is asked whether NSW should just bite the bullet and adopt Victoria’s mandatory mask policy. He says it’s very unlikely that a mandatory mask policy would have stopped Victoria’s second outbreak.

I think that it would be a contentious point for anyone, even the most strident mask advocate, to suggest that the current levels of transmission in Victoria could have been avoided with an earlier mask-use policy. And the reason for that is clear in the epidemiology of the infections in Victoria. They originated from household outbreaks and then spread out into the community. You don’t wear a mask in your household. So while we will continue to say they have an effect in reducing transmission, the submission that they significantly blunt an epidemic curve is not supported at the moment.

Updated

Coatsworth is asked about further outbreaks at a number of meatworks in Victoria. He says they “fit that bill” of workplaces with “more transmission potential”:

“So it’s critically important that the employees and the employers in partnership with government [have] Covid-safe plans [and] enable workers not to be there if they are unwell, and to get tested, and that’s the way we’re going to control the outbreaks in those sorts of facilities.

“Whether there is specific policy we can implement in meatworks is not something we are looking at but we are aware that they are at risk.”

Updated

A reporter has asked Coatsworth a very funny and obviously leading question: “How critical is it that these people [currently self-isolating in NSW] comply to the letter with that 14-day quarantine? Are they NSW’s last line of defence to not get to where Victoria is?”

He unfortunately does not repeat the line, which is definitely what she wanted him to do, but says this instead:

It is absolutely critical that if a public health official has asked you to do so that you strictly do so. Strictly means that you can’t go out. You need your friends or family to help you out for those two weeks, to ensure, and enable you not to go out into the community. And indeed there are penalties for those that would breach those public health regulations.

Updated

Nick Coatsworth says community response has been 'phenomenal'

Coatsworth says the response from the community following the second outbreaks in NSW and Victoria has been “phenomenal”. He points to the NSW south coast town of Batemans Bay in particular, where hundreds of people have been tested since the outbreak at the Soldiers Club.

What we’ve seen today is a remarkable example of the community getting out in force to get themselves tested. That is a model for how we need to respond to Covid-19. With a vigorous public health response, with pop-up testing clinics. That’s been replicated in south-west in Sydney in the past weeks and on a greater scale in greater Melbourne and Mitchell shire.

The community support that we’re getting throughout this second peak of Covid-19 in Australia has been phenomenal and continues to be, I think, a source of great pride for all Australians that we can go through this, again, together, to help the most vulnerable in our community avoid being diagnosed with this virus and potentially getting severe consequences from it.

Updated

Deputy chief medical officer Nick Coatsworth is giving the national Covid-19 update now.

The state’s premier, Peter Gutwein, has just said this while speaking at a meeting. He says more details will be released by the state’s health department today. It would be Tasmania’s first case of Covid-19 in two months.

Updated

Victoria’s opposition leader, Michael O’Brien, has called for the state’s premier, Daniel Andrews, and three of his senior ministers to give evidence at an inquiry into Victoria’s hotel quarantine program.

Headed by Jennifer Coate AO, the inquiry into the state’s calamitous hotel quarantine program began this morning. It heard there is evidence that many if not all the current cases of coronavirus could be linked to the hotel outbreaks.

Coate said this morning that government decision-makers will be among those called to give evidence, and O’Brien wants Andrews, his health minister, Jenny Mikakos, police minister, Lisa Neville, and jobs minister, Martin Pakula, to be among them.

“I think they do need to answer questions because when the government has made mistakes, and people have died as a result, Victorians need answers,” he said.

“First of all to work out what wrong, and secondly to make sure that nothing like this can ever happen again.”

Updated

The mayor of the Victorian border town of Wodonga, Anna Speedie, has just been on the ABC. She and the mayor of its twin town, Albury, are unhappy with the way the NSW government has handled the border closure. Here’s some of what she had to say:

I think the restrictions are necessary; I understand why. It is again the process and the implementation and lack of consultation. Again this border community is being directly impacted, and pretty severely. We have instances where people are no longer be able to get to businesses; they can’t get to family members, and people just don’t understand how this border works.

With the new tight controls, we are going to see fewer people able to traverse the border and continue their work, continue their interactions with their families [and our most] vulnerable people will impacted especially ... The biggest frustration is we seem to have no input, and our messages are falling on deaf ears in NSW.

Updated

Man in his 20s hospitalised with Covid-19 in Queensland

A man in his 20s has been hospitalised with Covid-19 in Queensland.

According to Queensland Health the man tested positive after recently returning from overseas while on a freight ship off the coast of Queensland.

The man has been transferred to Sunshine Coast University hospital.

Eighteen crew remain on board the ship and have all tested negative. Queensland Health says the crew members will remain on the ship, which is anchored 17km off Queensland’s coast, and will undergo further testing.

It is the only new case of the virus in Queensland, and brings the total number of cases in the state to 1,072.

Updated

Facts and figures from Victoria

And here’s the latest from Victoria after it recorded 275 new cases since yesterday:

  • 1,060 cases may indicate community transmission
  • 2,913 cases are active
  • 147 cases are in hospital, including 31 in intensive care
  • 2,933 people have recovered
  • Of the total cases, 5,456 are from metropolitan Melbourne and 348 are from regional Victoria
  • Total cases are 3,082 men and 2,830 women
  • More than 1,331,000 tests have been processed
  • Total number of healthcare workers: 429; active cases: 164 (of which most were acquired in the community).

And the key clusters in Victoria look like this:

  • 173 cases have been linked to Al-Taqwa College in Truganina
  • 57 have been linked to Somerville Retail Services in Tottenham
  • 36 have been linked to JBS in Brooklyn
  • 4 have been linked to Nestle Campbellfield
  • 12 have been linked to Australian Lamb Company in Colac
  • 5 have been linked to Australian Pharmaceutical Industries in Dandenong South
  • 13 have been linked to Goodman Fielder Pampas in West Footscray
  • 13 have been linked to St Basil’s Homes for the Aged in Fawkner
  • 40 have been linked to Estia Health in Ardeer
  • 28 have been linked to Glendale Aged Care facility in Werribee
  • 18 have been linked to the Royal Melbourne hospital Royal Park campus
  • 20 have been linked to LaManna Supermarket in Essendon Fields
  • 14 have been linked to Embracia Aged Care Moonee Valley in Avondale Heights
  • 5 have been linked to Japara Central Park Aged Care Home in Windsor

Updated

That NSW Health update has again urged people to avoid gatherings of more than 10 and suggested people should avoid “all non-essential travel”. Those things are still allowed in NSW but the government is resisting making major changes to laws around gatherings or travel as it attempts to grapple with the new outbreak.

Here’s the language from the statement:

Everyone needs to be aware that there has been transmission in venues such as hotels and restaurants, gyms and social gatherings and therefore they should exercise particular caution in those situations. While it is not a legal requirement, it would be preferable and safer for the time being to avoid all non-essential travel, and not host or attend gatherings of more than 10 people at home (not withstanding that the legal limit is 20 people). Everyone should observe social distancing and hygiene measures and consider wearing a face mask in situations where social distancing is not possible.

Updated

Breakdown of 20 new cases in NSW

The NSW health department has issued a detailed breakdown of the 20 new Covid-19 cases reported to 8pm yesterday.

They include:

  • Three people who were contacts of cases linked to the Crossroads Hotel cluster
  • Eight people associated with the Thai Rock restaurant in Stockland Mall, Wetherill Park, including four who attended the restaurant and four close contacts
  • Four people associated with the Batemans Bay Soldiers Club, including two diners, one staff member and a contact of the previously reported cases
  • Four overseas travellers in hotel quarantine
  • One person who was infected while in Victoria who entered NSW before the border restrictions were in place.

There are now eight cases linked to the Batemans Bay Soldiers Club, 48 linked to the Crossroads Hotel and 16 cases associated with the Thai Rock restaurant.

Updated

Good afternoon. Thanks as always to Calla Wahlquist for steering us through the day. I’ll be with you for the next couple of hours.

Earlier today Covid Policing, a group of human rights groups and community legal centres, released an open letter calling for state police forces to release data about their enforcement of public health orders in place since the beginning of the pandemic.

The group includes, among others, Amnesty International, the Grata Fund, the Redfern Legal Centre in Sydney, Caxton Legal Centre in Brisbane and the Flemington Kensington Community Legal Centre in Melbourne.

They’ve been tracking policing across various jurisdictions for a few months.

The statement points to the limited data released by state police, and through their own complaints gathering, to raise concerns about the use of lockdown fines in relation to Indigenous and migrant communities. It argues that police forces in Australia have not been sufficiently transparent in the way the orders have been enforced. While some states, including NSW, have given breakdowns on fines issued, others such as Queensland and Victoria have resisted releasing detailed data.

The letter states:

In addition to addressing and preventing the misuse of power, the public has a right to expect and demand that all people are treated fairly and that police discretion will be used appropriately throughout this pandemic. The transparent analysis of police data is the only way to ensure this.

While Victoria police has released the location data of the more than 6,000 Covid-19 infringement notices (totalling more than $9m in possible state revenue) initial review of this data indicates that suburbs with higher migrant populations and public housing density have been more heavily policed and there appears to be no correlation between enforcement and reducing the spread of the virus.

What is still missing from the Victorian and national data is the demographics of those stopped and the reasons for decisions to use or not use discretion.

In order to have independent oversight, it is necessary that detailed, de-identified data is available. Transparency and independent oversight not only provides important feedback on lessons learned but also can increase public trust – which ideally leads to greater adherence to public health measures in the first place.

Updated

On that note I am going to hand over to Michael McGowan to take you through the next few hours.

Stay well, stay at home, wear a mask if you’re in Melbourne and the Mitchell shire and please: don’t hex the moon. She is doing her best.

I’ll see you in the morning.

Updated

Traditional owners want Uluru closed to interstate tourists

Traditional owners have called for the Uluru-Kata Tjuta national park to be closed to tourists if the airport reopens to interstate flights on 1 August as planned.

The Mutitjulu Community Aboriginal Corporation told the ABC it is concerned interstate tourists from coronavirus hotspots, or people who have had contact with them, will spread the virus to its vulnerable community. It wrote to NT’s chief minister, Michael Gunner, and the federal Indigenous affairs minister, Ken Wyatt.

Its director, Craig Woods, told the ABC “people’s lives are more important than money”.

Indigenous people suffer more chronic disease than other citizens. This virus is not good for our people. Please postpone your holiday, stay home and keep the Mutitjulu community safe.

It only takes one to infect our community … [and we] really don’t have a fair idea of how Covid-19 infects [our] people and the suffering that happens.

Updated

Graphs with the facts

Time for some scary graphs, courtesy of data editor Nick Evershed.

Here’s the Victorian trend.

Trend in local and overseas-related transmission of Covid-19 in Victoria.
Trend in local and overseas-related transmission of Covid-19 in Victoria.

And here’s the source of cases in Victoria, then in NSW. Blue is overseas, red is locally acquired, orange is interstate.

Source of Covid-19 infections in Victoria.
Source of Covid-19 infections in Victoria.
Source of Covid-19 infections in NSW.
Source of Covid-19 infections in NSW.

Updated

About 240,000 businesses are at “high risk of failure come September”, according to a report released today by Deloitte Access Economics. That’s nearly 10% of all Australian businesses.

The businesses most at risk are in the hospitality, professional services and transport industries. The risk is that those businesses will lose access to the $1,500 a fortnight jobkeeper payment on 27 September, around the same time that many rental and loan repayment agreements are set to come due.

Deloitte said about 40% of businesses across the hospitality, professional services and transport sectors have indicated their cash reserves can cover less than three months of operations in the current environment.

It said smaller businesses would find it more difficult to survive.

Updated

Changes to student visa system

Australia’s student visa system will be changed to allow students from all countries to apply for a visa outside Australia, and to provide extra time for English language results, as part of changes intended to make Australia more attractive to international students, post-coronavirus.

The education minister, Dan Tehan, and the acting immigration minister, Alan Tudge, said international students contributed $40bn to the economy and the closure of Australia’s international borders to limit the risk of coronavirus had affected the sector.

They announced five changes to the visa system, which they said “will ensure international students are not worse off due to the coronavirus pandemic and that Australia remains competitive with other countries”.

They are:

  • The government will recommence granting student visas in all locations lodged outside Australia. This means when borders reopen, students will already have visas and be able to make arrangements to travel
  • International students will be able to lodge a further student visa application free if they are unable to complete their studies within their original visa validity due to Covid-19.
  • Current student visa holders studying online outside Australia due to Covid-19 will be able to use that study to count towards the Australian study requirement for a post-study work visa.
  • Graduates who held a student visa will be eligible to apply for a post-study work visa outside Australia if they are unable to return due to Covid-19.
  • Additional time will be given for applicants to provide English language results where Covid-19 has disrupted access to these services.

Updated

Testing in Batemans Bay was at capacity earlier this morning.

SA is 'not contemplating' lifting its hard border with Victoria

Marshall said South Australia would keep its hard border with Victoria in place “for an extended period of time”.

It’s clear we’re going to be keeping the hard border in place with Victoria for an extended period of time. This is not something that is being contemplated to be lifted.

We are looking carefully at what is happening in NSW. They’ve had good results over the last three or four months. But we did see an uptick over the weekend. We are seeing a few more cases of community transmission that we really need to understand the epi-link associated with those new infections.

The transition committee meets tomorrow and again on Friday. They’ll be looking very carefully, especially with the border with NSW and the ACT but I certainly don’t have anything to update today.

Updated

Speaking of breaching public health orders, South Australia’s premier, Steven Marshall, is speaking now about the case of three people from Victoria who appeared in court today after allegedly breaching the border rules.

The trio were tracked down at an Adelaide motel, AAP reported. They are alleged to have crossed the border at 5pm on Saturday, with one of them claiming to need urgent medical attention, although they failed to attend hospital.

From AAP:

Their ute was found at suburban Mawson Lakes just after midday on Sunday.

Two men, aged 34 and 35, were found a short distance away in a taxi and a 32-year-old woman was located in Merchant Lane.

The men were taken to the Royal Adelaide hospital for treatment – one for a check-up and the other for a pre-existing ankle injury – while the woman was taken to the city watchhouse.

The two men were later released from hospital and also taken into custody.

The trio are charged with failing to comply with a direction in accordance with the Emergency Management Act.

They will all also be tested for Covid-19.

Asked about the case, Marshall said:

Look, the reality is that the magistrate had available a $20,000 fine penalty and they’ve seen fit not to award the full $20,000.

I wish they all had received a $20,000 fine and it would have sent a strong message we don’t want people here in our state that will pose a risk to the health, safety and welfare of our state.

He said he was “happy to consider” the possibility of people who breach health orders facing jail time.

We want to send the strongest message possible to anybody that comes into our state. If they’re doing the wrong thing, there are significant penalties. We can’t be too casual with regards to the coronavirus. There are devastating results being now felt from a health perspective and from an economic perspective in Victoria. So we’re going to be doing everything we can to protect our people and our economy in South Australia.

Updated

A pub in the New England town of Armidale has been fined $5,000 for breaching public health orders because its patrons were allegedly not physically distancing.

NSW police said officers went to the Faulkner Street hotel to do a public order health check on Friday and will allege that “upward of 30 patrons occupied two small areas of the premises with no social distancing maintained”.

A police statement said:

Patrons were instructed to vacate the immediate area to which they complied, and the premises has since been spoken to by police regarding their Covid-19 safety plan.

The $5,000 fine, which is the on-the-spot fine for businesses breaching the public health orders in NSW, was issued on Monday. The maximum penalty is $11,000 or six months’ jail.

The New England police district commander, Supt Scott Tanner, said:

Whilst it is the responsibility of licensed premises to ensure they’re complying with public health orders, the public have to understand they’re putting those premises at risk and they may also be held liable.

They’re putting the livelihoods of these businesses at risk, and if people don’t think it’s going to happen in our area they only have to look at other regional areas that are being impacted.

Tanner said the problem was young people, as it so often is. (Just kidding young people I love you and know most of you are very responsible.)

The parties that put this licensed premises at risk were young people whose behaviour was a display of recklessness, and if they think they’re immune to Covid-19, or to public health orders, they can think again. Up until this stage we’ve been trying to work with the community and with licensed premises, but clearly that’s fallen on deaf ears so we have no other option than to enforce these public health orders and we will continue to do so.

Updated

ACT records no new cases of coronavirus, issues warning for Batemans Bay

The Australian Capital Territory has recorded no new cases of coronavirus in the past 24 hours and now has three active cases. (As there have been no reported deaths in the ACT, I assume that means the other two have recovered.)

The ACT health department has also asked any Canberrans who may have been in the Soldiers Club in Batemans Bay last week to heed the health advice and self-isolate. The self-isolation dates are listed here.

She also said anyone who was in Batemans Bay – even if they didn’t attend the Soldiers Club – should monitor themselves for symptoms.

The ACT’s chief health officer, Dr Kerryn Coleman, said:

With many Canberrans returning from the south coast after the school holidays we are keen to ensure anyone who has been in this location on the dates specified by NSW Health follows the advice to self-quarantine and get tested. Contact the Covid-19 Helpline on (02) 6207 7244 if you have attended the Soldiers Club last week.

ACT Health is working closely with its NSW counterparts to contact trace anyone in the club over those days but I would urge anyone who has not yet been contacted and was in the club to follow this advice.

Anyone who was not at the club but holidaying in Batemans Bay is asked to be vigilant with their health and to get tested if they have any symptoms no matter how mild.

Updated

List of outbreaks in NSW

Let’s run through all those outbreaks in NSW.

If you were at the following venues on these dates you must get tested and self-isolate for 14 days, even if your test is negative.

  • Batemans Bay Soldiers Club: Monday 13 July, Wednesday 15 July, Thursday 16 July, Friday 17 July.
  • Plus Fitness Campbelltown: 9am to 10am, Saturday 11 July.
  • Crossroads Hotel Casula: Friday 3 July to Friday 10 July.
  • Planet Fitness Casula: Saturday 4 July to Friday 10 July
  • Picton Hotel in Picton: Saturday 4 July, Sunday 5 July, Thursday 9 July, Friday 10 July.
  • Thai Rock restaurant in Wetherill Park: Thursday 9 July to Sunday 12 July, Tuesday 14 July.
  • West Leagues Club Campbelltown: Friday 10 July 8pm to midnight, Sunday 12 July, midnight to 2.30am

If you were at any of the following locations on these dates, monitor yourself for symptoms and self-isolate and get tested if symptoms occur.

Residents of Sydney’s eastern suburbs should note that these businesses are not confined to the south-west.

  • C1 Speed Indoor Karting, Albion Park: Saturday 11 July, 6pm to 7pm.
  • McDonald’s Albion Park, Wednesday 15 July, 2pm to 2.30pm.
  • Mancini’s Original Woodfired Pizza, Belfield: Friday 10 July, 8pm to 9.20pm.
  • Canterbury Leagues Club, Belmore: Saturday 4 July, 11pm to 1am.
  • Woolworths Bowral: Saturday 11 July, 12pm to 9pm, and Sunday 12 July, 12pm to 9pm.
  • Hurricanes Grill, Brighton Le Sands, Saturday 11 July 6pm to 9pm.
  • Bavarian Mcarthur in Campbelltown, Saturday 11 July, 7.30pm to 9pm.
  • Mcarthur Tavern, Campbelltown: Saturday 11 July, 9.15pm to 12.40am.
  • Kmart Casula: Friday 10 July, 5pm to midnight.
  • Holy Duck! Chippendale: Friday 10 July, 7.15pm to 9.30pm.
  • Frankie’s Food Factory in Milperra, Friday 10 July, 1pm to 3pm
  • Westfield Mount Druitt, Saturday 18 July, 1.30pm to 3.30pm.
  • Rashays in North Wollongong: Saturday 11 July, 7pm to 9pm.
  • Love Supreme in Paddington: Tuesday 14 July, 5.30pm to 9pm.
  • The Village Inn in Paddington: Saturday 11 July, 6.30pm to 10pm
  • Milky Lane in Parramatta: Saturday 11 July, 2pm to 3pm.
  • Star City Casino in Pyrmont: Saturday 4 July, 8pm to 10.30pm.
  • Bankstown YMCA in Revesby: Thursday 9 July, 4pm to 8pm, and Saturday 11 July, 8am to 12pm.
  • Pharmacy for Less Tahmoor: Sunday 12 July, 9am to 10.40am.
  • Zone Bowling Villawood: Saturday 27 June, 11am to 3pm.
  • Stockland Mall in Wetherill Park: Saturday 4 July, Sunday 5 July, Thursday 9 July to Sunday 12 July, Tuesday 14 July.

Updated

Berejiklian 'looking forward' to letter about moving Qld border checkpoints

I just wanted to go back to something the NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, said about a proposal from the Queensland government to bring communities on the NSW side of the NSW-Qld border under the umbrella of the sunshine state.

Queensland’s premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, told reporters this morning that traffic congestion on the border could be eased if they moved the checkpoints south into NSW, on the other side of Tweed Heads. She said the Queensland police minister, Mark Ryan, raised that issue with his NSW counterpart back in March.

And in the spirit of cooperation I think it would be good if the NSW government could now, now we are in July, give it due consideration. It would make it much easier operationally, it would keep those two communities together, and of course they will remain NSW residents.

We will put that detailed submission down to the NSW government today, and, look, we will just see if it would ease pressure, especially on those border communities. I’m just trying to make it easier for people, but of course, you know, if the NSW is against it, if they are against it, I hope they give it consideration.

There are a couple of issues with this, namely that I’m almost certain that if the checkpoint is moved into NSW it legally has to be enforced by NSW police, under a NSW health order. State public health orders do not normally operate out of jurisdiction, and state police don’t either unless they are following a crime in progress.

I could be wrong but if I’m not I would suspect NSW doesn’t want it because it would have to pay for it. And it’s already paying for the NSW-Victoria border.

Berejiklian said NSW had open borders with Queensland so the issue of policing the border was one for Queensland.

Can I say, even though I have heard comments from the Queensland government in the last 10 days on this issue, it is only this morning I got a very short text from the Queensland premier about the matter. Obviously we are happy to engage.

I’m happy to consider all options except I do not believe that at any stage we should move the border. If anything the border should be moved north. There is zero infection in [northern] NSW at this stage, and certainly we will do the right thing by residents on both sides of the border. But I have no intention of changing things. I am unclear as to what the Queensland government is asking us to do, because they have not communicated that yet. I look forward to that letter.

Updated

Morrison was also asked about an expansion of the federal government’s loan guarantee scheme for small businesses. The Coalition has foreshadowed that it will lift the cap on guaranteed loans from $250,000 to $1m to 3.5m eligible small businesses.

He was asked if it was wise for businesses to borrow more when they have limited cash flow.

He said that’s a decision for businesses to make.

Decisions businesses take about what capital they need and how much they borrow are judgments for them. And they work that out with their banks, and they work it out with their accountants and their financial planners. And they make sound judgments ... I have a lot of faith in Australian businesses and their ability to make sound judgments about their future.

What the treasurer and I are seeking to do with our entire government is to back them in, to give them the support they need.

It was important to allow small businesses to invest.

I don’t just want Australia to survive the Covid recession, I want us to emerge strongly from it. We’re not a country that just survives, we are a country that always seeks to thrive. That is what I know to be the culture and attitude of small businesses and businesses like the ones we are in here today. And we want to back them in for that and to help them lift their heads and look forward.

Updated

Morrison was asked if the revised jobkeeper payment have to be put into legislation, and when that might be able to go before parliament.

He said:

The decision for the parliament not to sit for the next sitting fortnight was done on the basis of medical advice. It was frankly a no-brainer when it came to the medical advice and what was necessary, and I conveyed that to the leader of the opposition Friday night and he agreed for that next sitting fortnight that it was not a good sense to bring people from all over the country, particularly from Victoria, and to create that risk.

Not just for the ACT, but more broadly. We will continue to manage these risks carefully and exercise our responsibilities carefully.

We know how important it is for the parliament to meet and sit ... And there is a sense across the major parties that we sit in person. That is an important part of how our parliament functions. And will be seeking to do that when the parliament next sits 24 August.

Updated

Morrison is asked if it’s feasible to transition all 3.5m people on jobkeeper over to a new program by Christmas.

He suggested that businesses will be in a stronger position because of the way the economy is “rebuilding and moving through the Covid recession”.

Where businesses have been unable to do that, then that is where we have stepping in jobkeeper. And there are businesses that are down 90%. There are businesses down even more than that in the most affected areas ... in the events and exhibition industry that is the feedback we have had this morning and what I’ve seen. The same is true in aviation and entertainment sectors, many parts of the hospitality and tourism industries, although it has been encouraging. I was in Queensland on Friday and I was pleased see and hear about the improvements they have been seeing there with increased visitation.

But my message to all Australians is the same. We want to keep moving forward.

Updated

Scott Morrison on 'temporary' jobkeeper support

The prime minister, Scott Morrison, is speaking at a business called DisplayWise in southern Sydney about the jobkeeper program and economic recovery from the coronavirus. He has provided some reassurance, with little detail, about continuing economic support.

He said:

It will be targeted, it will be temporary, it will be effective as the first round has been. We do know this first round has been very important. I mean, almost 1m businesses, around 3.5m employees, and there is still two months to go on the current set of arrangements. What the treasurer and I will announce this week will not commence the day after we announce it – it will be several months from then. There will be several months for businesses to adjust to the next phase.

But the support that had been in place since April will be in place until September, and then we’ll move into a new phase. But I can assure you, businesses like the one we are standing in today and employees that will depend on a business will continue to get that support.

Updated

Berejiklian said NSW was “holding the line” against the second wave.

Under the circumstances we are doing OK, but it hasn’t reduced my level of stress or concern. I am as stressed and concerned as I was 10 days ago and two weeks ago and I do not want us to go down a track where we see suddenly a doubling or tripling of cases.

That is not good for NSW and not something we want to face. But we do have the chance to get ahead of the virus, to control its spread, if all of us take those extra steps.

Updated

Chant said the person in their 30s in intensive care is not linked to one of the clusters reported in NSW recently.

On the advice of wearing face masks in NSW, Chant said that it is “prudent” to wear masks in circumstances where you cannot socially distance. She said that’s consistent with the national health advice.

The role of face masks is we know that people are asymptomatic. Before they get symptoms they are infectious for approximately 48 hours. So individuals may be actually be infectious and out and about and the idea of the face masks is that if people are occasionally coughing or sneezing, then they could be infecting others and the face mask provides a shield.

So the face masks in the even provides a defence more for other people than yourself and in circumstances where you can’t socially distance, New South Wales Health consistently has messaged that face masks are a reasonable action to take. But we wouldn’t want to see face masks as a silver bullet.

Does that mean you should wear a mask in the supermarket in NSW?

That depends on the supermarket, Chant said, as well as whether you shop at busy times.

If community transmission increased in NSW, Chant said, the rules around masks may change.

If we got evidence of broader community transmission... we might more strongly encourage the use of face masks, but it is important that people all play a part and where you can’t socially distance, it is important that you consider using face masks.

Schools in NSW will return for term three tomorrow. Students will return on-campus.

Chant said:

At the moment we are confident in the hygiene measures that have been put in place and we do again urge parents at this time as they are dropping off their children to adhere to the guidance from the schools around the kiss-and-drop sort of way of approaching that and ensuring no congregation of adults outside the school premises.

She said they were not recommending that students in NSW wear face masks. She said it would be a personal decision.

We have never said that children can’t transmit to each other, but children on average are not the drivers of infection. That is a factor that parents need to weigh up.

Also the compliance issues with face masks ... If people are going to wear face masks they need them affixed to their nose and mouth. There is no point if they are hanging off. They can actually pose a risk if you have coughed and sneezed into your face mask and then you discard them on surfaces. These are the practical considerations with face masks and really it is a matter for parents, but at this point in time we are not recommending that students wear face masks.

Updated

There are now 48 cases linked to the Crossroads Hotel cluster

Chant said there are now 48 cases connected to the Crossroads Hotel cluster.

This includes 14 who attended the hotel on 3 July, one who attended on 5 July, 33 who are linked to the cluster but did not step in the hotel.

I think this highlights again the way in which this disease can be so insidiously spread. Once you get a seeding event, you can infect many, many other people.

Can I thank the community again for coming forward. Their actions have allowed us to identify these cases. I urge the community over the next two weeks, regardless, across the state, whether you are in south-western Sydney or western Sydney or across the state, now is time to come forward for testing. Even if you have minimal symptoms, it is incredibly important that we find and detect as many cases as we can to stop the trains of transmission.

Three of the new cases reported yesterday are contacts of people linked to the Crossroads Hotel. Eight are linked to the Thai Rock restaurant in Stockland Mall, including four who attended the restaurant and four close contacts.

There are also four people, as previously reported, connected to the Batemans Bay Soldiers Club.

There are also four international arrivals who tested positive in hotel quarantine, and one person who caught the virus in Victoria and has been isolating since their arrival.

Updated

NSW chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant said she wanted to highlight the cases in intensive care because it showed that Covid-19 was not just an a disease that affects older people.

I think it always is important to highlight that because often we tend to say this disease affects the elderly, and it does on average, but there will still be young people that are impacted and it is a call-out to everyone to take Covid-19 very seriously.

Updated

Two people are in intensive care in NSW, one in their 30s

The New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian, was speaking at the same time as Andrews.

She reported 20 new cases yesterday, but said “every single one of those is from a known source”. There are 96 people in hospital and two in intensive care, including one in their 30s.

Berejiklian said:

Whilst I remain incredibly concerned, that is one positive takeout that all of the cases now are from known sources, which means that people are taking advice and we need them to continue to do that

Please make sure, if you have been told to isolate at home, that you spend 14 days at home. Even if your tests come back negative. If you have been told to stay home 14 days, you have to stay home 14 days.

You may very well develop the disease and become contagious on day three or four or five as opposed to day one or two and it is so important to have everyone stay at home when they are meant to be at home.

NSW was at a “critical point”:

We have the opportunity to isolate the cases that we have, to clamp down and to make sure that we reduce the incidents of the virus spreading. We have that chance still in NSW. Unfortunately other places don’t have that opportunity ... Whilst we have to modify our behaviour and whilst we should think about our activity, we have the ability here in NSW to keep moving forward whilst we are controlling the spread. But it is up to all of us.

Can I say very, very strongly: please heed the health advice. The next few weeks are critical. Please avoid large crowds. Please think twice about going into any place which has crowds in it, even when you are social distancing and, as the advice has been provided in NSW, if you cannot guarantee social distancing where you are going, if you cannot guarantee that people around you will respect that social distancing, you must consider wearing a mask.

Updated

Andrews was asked about reports of delays in the contact tracing process, with some people and some businesses reporting they had notified all their staff of a confirmed case before being notified by the health and human services department.

He said:

Not necessarily everybody answers the phone when you call them. Not necessarily everybody is where they might be expected to be when you are trying to track and trace them. If it was simple and just pressing a button, then of course that would be much easier, but it isn’t. It is a big, diverse group of people.

I don’t think anyone necessarily enjoys having just been told they have got the virus and then going through all of the steps about what will involve for the next two weeks. It is an anxious time; it is a challenging time. What I can say is that the task has never been bigger, but the team has never been bigger and they are fantastic Victorians, as well as support from other states and ADF members now.

He added:

My advice, my message to those who test positive: if you get confirmation that you have tested positive, then you shouldn’t need someone to call you to know that you have to stay home. And your close contacts, they need to stay at home as well. People in your family.

You will be contacted as son as is possible. That can take many forms. It might be a text message in the first instance or an email and then that long-form interview which can take an hour per person to go through, retrace their steps, go back through where they have been over last few days and then on contact all of those other people.

So it is a big, big task. They are doing their very best. That is all you can ask of people. The team is getting bigger and it needs to because the task has never been bigger.

Updated

Andrews said that there are no plans to change the resumption of state parliament, which is set down for the first week of August.

If advice changes, again that is a matter for the Speaker and the president. The last thing that anyone wants to do is to be contributing to the spread of the virus, but at this stage, I am planning to be there ... That is quite some time off. As I said before, a day in this pandemic is very much like a month.

Updated

Andrews was asked about reports that 20 people held a party in the Melbourne CBD last night. He said:

This is no time for parties. This is very serious. We send our love, our thoughts and prayers and best wishes to the family of the woman in her 80s who passed away since we were last here on this podium.

I can’t say that there won’t be further deaths. I think that if people just think about that for a moment. There are many families across our state who are dealing with the fact that a loved one is in hospital, dealing with the fact that a loved one is needing a machine to help them breathe. There are many families across Melbourne that are planning funerals at the moment. Now is not the time to be having parties, breaking the rules and not only putting yourself at risk but potentially risking the health and wellbeing of others.

Updated

NSW to tighten Victoria border restrictions from Wednesday

The NSW-Victorian border restrictions will tighten at midnight tomorrow, placing further restrictions on the reasons people can cross in to NSW and establishing a border zone for border communities.

Andrews said he can understand the decision that NSW has made.

Gladys [Berejiklian] assured me for freight, for the sorts of essential movement that relates to the fact that many of these border towns are in fact one town, there might be in two parts ... we often provide services into southern New South Wales, people often have to travel for work.

I know there will be some practical issues that people have to work through but I have got an open line of communication with my premier colleague in New South Wales and I will continue to speak with Gladys and [regional development minister Jaclyn Symes] will continue to work with her counterpart to make a different set of circumstances just a little easier. They won’t be easy but I can understand why Premier Berejiklian has made the decisions she has made. Let’s work together and make them as practical as we can, make them as commonsense as we can.

Updated

On the mandatory wearing of face masks, Andrews said:

I just remind people it is a mask or a face covering. It can be a handkerchief, scarf, bandana. There is all manner of innovative methods, they are all over the internet. People can look and find away to comply but giving people that bit of lead in time is important.

There has been a lot of commentary and a lot of people who don’t necessarily think that the virus is real or think it is somehow a fundamental attack on peoples’ human rights, I just remind every Victorian that nurses and doctors wear masks when they are treating you and I don’t think it is too much to ask Victorians to wear a mask so they don’t finish up in hospital or contribute to somebody else finishing up in hospital.

Victorians will embrace this and I am grateful to them for doing it.

Updated

What about reports retailers are price-gouging on selling face masks in Melbourne?

Andrews:

I would encourage everybody to be fair and reasonable. I would encourage everybody to do the right thing and acknowledge that this is no time to be profiting from the pain of others. There is no time to be doing that, regardless of a global pandemic or not.

Good clarification, that.

Asked if Victorian government ministers would make themselves available to the hotel quarantine inquiry, Andrews said “that is entirely a matter for [inquiry chair] former Justice [Jennifer] Coates”.

Everybody should participate fully.

Will Andrews give evidence, if he is called?

That is a matter for Judge Coates. Everybody should be involved to the extent that they need to be.

He continued:

I won’t tell a former judge how to do her work. She will call whomever she thinks she needs to call. Anyone who is called should turn up.

Andrews was asked if the health system was facing an “equal” strain because of the number of healthcare workers who have tested positive or are self-isolating.

I’m not entirely sure what that question meant, but I think it’s basically asking if the capacity of the health system to respond has reduced due to the number of healthcare workers out of action.

Andrews said: “No, I wouldn’t say that.”

I think that it is always challenging whenever you have got workers in those critical roles that are either furloughed because they are a potential close contact or people that have tested positive.

There is a lot of interesting data in this about the percentage of people who, in those roles that have contracted it at work, versus contracting the virus through their daily lives away from work, there is always challenges when you have got any key staff that are at home sick, in effect. We have got contingency plans in place. We have a very dedicated workforce across all those fields and more and we’re confident that – not to diminish the impact on those families and some of the real challenges that they face on a personal level – we are confident that we have got enough staff in place.

Updated

Back to Victoria, Daniel Andrews said he was “cautious” about the reduction in cases reported today. It’s 88 fewer cases than yesterday.

Andrews:

We had a very big day Friday and we had a substantial drop-off, even though we had done more tests. This shows you that it is a wicked enemy, it is unable and until we bring some stability to this, we won’t be able to talk about a trend.

I am much happier to be able to report a lower number than a higher one. We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that I know a day in this pandemic feels like a month, we are all very clear on that. We still haven’t reached the two-week mark. It won’t be until Wednesday that we get to the full two weeks of the stay-at-home orders across all of metro Melbourne, albeit some of those hotspot postcodes in the north and the west, they have been under the stay at home rules for longer.

We shouldn’t interpret this data as if we’re in week five of a six week lockdown. It is only early and it takes some time. We have all become expert on the fact that this has got a life of at least a week and when you add a few more days for testing and for an abundance of caution, a two-week period is not unimportant. Let’s wait and see how the week unfolds.

Updated

NSW records 20 new coronavirus cases

NSW has recorded 20 new cases of coronavirus, the highest number in several months.

Andrews was asked if the stage three restrictions would be extended to include Geelong, which has the highest number of cases outside of Melbourne.

Andrews said that Geelong was “obviously a much bigger community than many other regional cities, so the number of cases, as a raw measure, is probably not the best guide”.

He said that they were monitoring regional cases “very closely”.

He also thanked people in regional areas who have begun wearing a face mask, after the advice was extended to regional areas. It’s not mandatory in regional Victoria, but is requested in places where you can’t socially distance.

I have had reports from the bigger regional cities that a noticeable difference in the number of people doing that. I am grateful to them.

Face masks to be distributed to government schools in Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire

The deputy premier and education minister, James Merlino, said the Victorian government would distribute 1.2m single-use masks to government schools in Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire, ahead of the mandatory requirement to wear masks which will be in force from Thursday.

They will also distribute some masks to Catholic and independent schools as needed.

He said the government had also put in an order for 1.37m reusable masks, and the department of education would be among the first to receive some of that order.

Year 11 and 12 students, who are attending class in-person, will be required to wear masks, including in the classroom. Teachers will not be required to wear masks when teaching but will outside of the classroom.

Merlino said that students may also wear masks that their families have bought or made.

Students may also choose to wear bandannas or scarves to school. Schools will be a very interesting place from Thursday, in terms of what the students are wearing but these are masks and face coverings so many students will choose to wears scarves and bandannas.

The bottom line is, any student who needs a mask will be provided with one.

For teachers, because I know there is many questions from teachers and staff, again, it is a very simple message. It is not a requirement for teachers in the classroom because it is not always practical. Teachers will be able not to wear a mask or they won’t be required to wear a mask during instruction, but beyond the classroom, in the staff room, in the schoolyard, teachers and staff will be required to wear a mask.

He added:

I know this is a difficult time for everyone, particularly for our students and for parents in a home-learning environment but I want to reassure you that the government is providing all the support we can to make sure that we get through this difficult period safely and well and our students are learning at home, or on site at school.

People wear masks in Union Lane in Melbourne.
People wear masks in Union Lane in Melbourne. Photograph: David Crosling/AAP

Updated

On the start of the hotel quarantine inquiry, Andrews said:

I want to thank Justice Coate and all those working to run that inquiry, to give us the answers that we need to understand exactly what has gone wrong in that hotel quarantine program.

They have wasted no time. They have put in a power of work to get to this point. That formally begins in a public-facing way today and I am confident that process will give us the answers that we are each entitled to.

What has gone here is completely unacceptable to me and unacceptable to all of us but the best thing to do is to have that proper understanding of exactly what has gone on. Those answers, that is what we’re entitled to and that is what the judicial process, at arms length from government, will appropriately deliver. And I’m very confident of that.

Updated

There are currently 2,913 active coronavirus cases in Victoria, and 5,142 have been recorded in total.

Some 26,588 coronavirus tests were conducted in the past 24 hours, and premier Daniel Andrews says 1.33m tests have been conducted in Victoria since 1 January.

Andrews repeated his call for anyone with “even the mildest of symptoms” to get tested.

That is a really powerful contribution that every single person who gets tested makes to us being able to track this virus, to have people isolate in their homes, to limit the spread, logic tells you that without that sort of data, without that evidence, it becomes very challenging to limit the spread of this virus, no matter what settings you have in place, no matter what rules you have in place.

We are always very grateful to such a large number of Victorians coming forward and getting tested. That is now 1,331,774 tests since January 1st. One of the highest testing rates anywhere in the world and a key component to our battle against this enemy.

Victoria records 275 new cases of coronavirus, one more death

Victoria records 275 new cases of coronavirus, and one more person has died overnight.

The person who died was a woman in her 80s, bringing the total number of deaths linked to coronavirus in the state to 39.

Of those new cases, 28 are linked to known outbreaks and the remainder are under investigation.

There are now 147 people in hospital, and 31 in intensive care.

We heard on the weekend that the government is again cancelling parliamentary sittings in the first two weeks of August due to Covid-19. The health advice from acting chief medical officer Paul Kelly was fairly clear on the dangers of reconvening parliament. But it’s worth remembering that there are other ways parliament can continue to function in relative safety.

In fact, the United Kingdom has experimented with a hybrid model of parliament, which combines limited in-person attendance with virtual conferencing technology. The Australian government has been on notice about the potential for a hybrid parliament since the early stages of the pandemic. In April, the Centre for Public Integrity released a short briefing paper detailing how such a model could work here and still meet constitutional requirements.

The paper warned the current diminished attendance of MPs could “limit the engagement of backbenchers, minor parties, and the crossbench”.

Centre for Public Integrity board member Anthony Whealy, a former NSW judge, believes the hybrid model adopted overseas would help ensure all parliamentarians were represented, while complying with the constitution and social distancing.

“It’s fundamental to the working of a democracy that we have a parliament, because that’s the system under which all of our laws are passed, or checked, or amended, or rejected,” Whealy said in April.

“If you don’t have a parliament sitting then the whole method under which the democracy works – namely driven by parliamentary legislation and scrutiny – falls to the ground.”

The Australian parliament was reportedly seeking briefings from the UK about the hybrid model this month in the hope that a hybrid parliament would be possible from August.

Updated

Princes Hill Secondary College in Carlton North closes over coronavirus case

Princes Hill Secondary College in Carlton North is closed today due to a reported case of coronavirus.

A message was sent to parents and staff last night.

The message, forwarded to us by a reader, said that the case had been reported to the Department of Education and Training and the Department of Health and Human Services, and that the later was undertaking a further investigation.

As a precautionary measure, Princess Hill Secondary College will be closed for 24-hours tomorrow (Monday 20 July) while we await further advice.

Because the school is in Melbourne, only years 11 and 12 are studying on campus. Year seven to 10 classes continued via remote learning today, with teachers working from home.

Updated

Labor’s early childhood education spokeswoman, Amanda Rishworth, spoke to Sky News this morning about the loss of the jobkeeper payment to the childcare sector.

The childcare sector will not be able to access jobkeeper from today. The free childcare program, stood up at the start of the pandemic, ended last week.

Rishworth said there was “great concern across the sector” about the lack of financial security if outbreaks, like that in Melbourne, are seen elsewhere and those payments aren’t reinstated.

My question is will we see more early educators lining up at Centrelink as a result of this? It is the wrong sector I think to be trialling the early windback, because the government’s done no research into what will happen once fees comes back and what will happen to demand. There could well be a reduction in demand, leaving early educators very vulnerable to losing their jobs.

Rishworth said childcare is “critically important to our whole economy, it is an essential service”.

We saw this as one of the services that had to keep going to ensure that essential workers could go to work. They’re still operating in Victoria because without them the doctors, the nurses, the shop assistants, the aged care carers, they can’t go to work. So this is actually an essential economic pillar in our society if we want to keep functioning.

She said that if childcare was not available, because childcare centres had collapsed due to the early withdrawal of financial support, or were open but had fees that were too high for the average family, “what you’re going to see is a lacklustre restart of the economy”.

Updated

Back on the Victorian quarantine inquiry, the inquiry chair, former judge Jennifer Coate, just ended the today’s hearing on this statement:

To get this done I expect no less than full, frank and timely cooperation from all government agencies and departments to allow me to do my job for the people of Victoria.

The inquiry is adjourned until the full public hearing on 6 August, when witnesses will be called. It will be going through all the submissions it has received and documents produced in response to a notice of discovery, most of which must be delivered by Friday.

In other news, some childcare centres in Melbourne say they will close without government support because of falling enrolments caused by the second lockdown, Matilda Boseley reports.

One childcare manager, Mandy Kelly, from the Melbourne University Family Club Co-operative, said:

It looks like six weeks is the maximum we could go for and following that will have to think about closing. It makes me feel terrible. We have been here for 55 years.

Read more here:

Neal said the inquiry had received a number of submissions about “what went well, and what went less well” in managing hotel quarantine in Victoria.

He said that, without pre-empting anything to come in the inquiry, the following issues had arisen for discussion:

  • The existence and content of any response plans for this form of emergency;
  • What was known about the infectious nature of Covid-19;
  • The speed with which the hotel quarantine system has to be established and the implications of that speed;
  • The basis on which decisions were made to implement the hotel quarantine system in its original form;
  • Resourcing issues;
  • Decisions made around contractual arrangements including the content of those contacts;
  • The suitability of service providers under those contracts;
  • Oversight of service providers;
  • What concerns and complaints emerged around that program, to whom they were reported and how they were addressed;
  • The control and coordination of hotel quarantine between different organisations
  • The training, supervision and reporting of security guards overseeing hotel quarantine;
  • The extent of testing among hotel quarantine staff.

Neal said the inquiry was expecting responses to its notices to produce by the end of July, with public hearings to begin on 6 August.

The honourable Jennifer Coate AO is seen during the Covid-19 hotel quarantine inquiry in Melbourne on Monday.
The honourable Jennifer Coate AO is seen during the Covid-19 hotel quarantine inquiry in Melbourne on Monday. Photograph: James Ross/AAP

Updated

Every coronavirus case currently in Melbourne could be linked back to the hotel quarantine program, inquiry hears

Neal said the inquiry, which is not hearing from any witnesses today, will hear evidence “of a scientific and medical nature about what has been understood about the spread of the virus from the hotel quarantine program into the community”.

It will also hear about the impact of the virus in the community, and the “various steps taken by government agencies and public health officials in response to that impact are matters of profound and ongoing significance to this community”.

Neal said:

Understandably, there has been intense community interest and daily commentary in the media about this program. Increasingly over recent weeks there has been growing and understandable community concern about transmission from that program into the general community.

He continued:

To establish and implement the hotel quarantine program, a range of contractual and other arrangements were entered into between government departments, hotels, a number of private service providers, private security companies, medical services, transport and food providers. It’s anticipated in the course of the inquiry that you will hear from various witnesses that the purposes of the directions and the contractual arrangements entered into was to either eliminate or reduce the public health risk posed by Covid-19 by containing its spread from returned travellers into the community.

As set out in the order in counsel establishing this inquiry, information already available to the inquiry suggests the possibility of a link between many of the cases of coronavirus identified in the Victorian community in the past few weeks and persons who were quarantined under the hotel quarantine program. Comments made by the chief health officer to the media have suggested that it may even be that every case of Covid-19 in Victoria in recent weeks could be sourced to the hotel quarantine program.

Those assisting you are in the process of obtaining the necessary material and documents and witnesses to put before the board on that very issue.

Updated

Tony Neal QC, the senior counsel assisting the hotel quarantine inquiry in Victoria, is giving his opening address. He is running through the key dates. On 27 March, national cabinet declared that returning travellers arriving in Australia would have to be subject to mandatory 14-day isolation “at designated facilities, for example, in a hotel”.

Relevant to the purposes of this inquiry, it indicates that designated facilities were designed by the relevant state and territory governments and enforced by state and territory governments with support from the Australian Defence Force, and the Australian Border Force, where necessary.

On 28 March, he said, the Victorian deputy chief health officer issued a direction, “advising travellers returning to Australia on or after 28 March they will be detained for a period of 14 days in a room at a designated hotel, hence the hotel quarantine regime”.

Amongst other conditions that direction imposed this restriction, detainees must not leave their room under any circumstances, they must not permit other persons to enter their room unless they’re authorised to be there for specific purposes.

Updated

The Victorian independent inquiry into hotel quarantine has begun in Melbourne. You can watch the livestream here.

Sutherland local court closed due to coronavirus case

A person who attended the Sutherland local court, in southern Sydney, on Wednesday last week has since tested positive to Covid-19, a spokesperson from the NSW Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ) has said.

The court has been closed for cleaning.

The spokesperson said:

NSW Health has advised DCJ that this case remains under investigation with further testing under way. However, DCJ is taking precautionary measures to arrange the court to be forensically cleaned and will close the court today.

DCJ will continue to work closely with NSW Health and carry out all necessary measures to protect the safety of our staff, court users and the community.

The local court has made changes to its operations since the onset of the pandemic to reduce the risk of the spread of coronavirus. This includes enforcing social-distancing rules, increasing cleaning and reducing the number of people attending court.

Updated

As always, you can follow our global coverage of the coronavirus pandemic, with the inexhaustible Helen Sullivan, here.

Look, in fairness to NSW, it has been doing its daily update at 11am for a few weeks. So really, Victoria is copying them.

The Victorian inquiry into the handling of hotel quarantine in the state will get under way at 10am this morning with opening statements from retired judge Jennifer Coate, and senior assisting counsel Tony Neal QC.

The long-anticipated inquiry will look at the use of contractors for security services for returned travellers in hotel quarantine, on what basis the contracts were given, what training the officers were given, as well as looking into the reports of guests allowed to travel between rooms and the rumours of sex between guards and guests.

Up until now Victorian premier Daniel Andrews has used the inquiry as the basis for refusing to answer questions on the government’s handling of the hotel quarantine debacle, and the launch of today’s inquiry will hopefully be the start of getting some answers.

No witnesses will be appearing today, and more hearings will be scheduled for next month, to report back to government at the end of September.

You can watch a livestream of the hearing here.

Updated

The prime minister is also holding a media event at 11am.

Sync your diaries, fam.

Victorian premier Daniel Andrews will hold a press conference at 11am, with the acting premier James Merlino, who is also the education minister.

People in Melbourne have been pretty quick to adopt the new rule around face masks.

The Victorian government first “requested” masks be worn in Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire, in circumstances where people can’t remain 1.5m away from each other, about a fortnight ago, and yesterday they announced that, from midnight on Wednesday, it would become mandatory to wear a mask in public.

These photos were taken yesterday afternoon.

Shoppers are seen wearing facemasks in the Acland Street shopping centre on Sunday.
Shoppers are seen wearing facemasks in the Acland Street shopping centre on Sunday. Photograph: Speed Media/REX/Shutterstock
A tram driver wears a mask in Melbourne on Sunday.
A tram driver wears a mask in Melbourne on Sunday. Photograph: David Crosling/EPA
This woman walking in St Kilda yesterday is not only wearing a face mask, she’s also wearing an awesome jumper from Aboriginal-owned Melbourne brand Clothing The Gap.
This woman walking in St Kilda yesterday is not only wearing a face mask, she’s also wearing an awesome jumper from Aboriginal-owned Melbourne brand Clothing The Gap. Photograph: Speed Media/REX/Shutterstock

Queensland records one new case of coronavirus

Queensland has recorded one new case of coronavirus overnight, ending a run of no new cases, but premier Annastacia Palaszczuk told reporters in Brisbane that she’s “not concerned about it”.

It is a person who was tested positive on a cargo vessel and they are now in hospital and they are completely secure. We have absolutely no concerns about that. We are monitoring that vessel.

We only have two active cases in Queensland. We had an ADF person who recovered, so we still only have two in Queensland. Our total is 1,072.

Updated

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg told Sky News this morning that he supports the order mandating the wearing of masks.

Not in all circumstances can we safely socially distance and in those cases you certainly want everyone wearing a mask.

I think it is prudent that in Victoria masks are being worn.

What we need to do is flatten out that curve. It’s going to take a huge effort from the public here.

If you live in Melbourne, you will probably want to keep an eye on this heatmap of coronavirus cases in the city, compiled by Nick Evershed based on data released by the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services.

Just don’t take the absence of a big red bubble in your local government area as a sign you can be lax about social distancing – this is only cases we know about.

Updated

Here is a bit more detail on those tougher restrictions on the NSW-Victorian border.

From AAP:

From midnight on Tuesday, a border zone will be set up along the Murray River and criteria for cross-border travel with be tightened.

All current travel permits will be cancelled and residents in the border zone who wish to move between the states will have to reapply.

Travel will only be allowed for work, education or for medical care, supplies or health services.

“The growing rates of community transmission in Victoria have us on high alert,” NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said.

He said the new protocols will make it harder to obtain a permit and make it easier for the government to cancel them.

If NSW residents travel beyond the border zone into Victoria, they will be forced to self-isolate for two weeks when they return.

Border residents will be able to from Monday afternoon check online to see if their address falls within the new restrictions.

Among the changed permit requirements, staff or students of boarding schools or universities must self-isolate for two weeks and obtain a negative swab before attending school.

Seasonal workers from Victoria are also banned from entering NSW.

I consider Channel Nine reporter Andrew Lund to be the official mask compliance correspondent. A dispatch from the frontlines:

Updated

Kelly said there was concern about the spread of the coronavirus in workplaces, after Victorian health authorities reported at the weekend that 80% of recent transmission of the virus had occurred where people work.

Among the workplaces of most concern were healthcare, aged care, meat processing plants and distribution centres – places with high staffing levels and workflow that makes social distancing difficult.

Asked if Australia should pre-emptively shut down meatworks to reduce the risk of the virus spreading, Kelly said:

We need to consider what is the risk and what is proportionate to that. We do need to eat, Fran.

Updated

Speaking on Radio National, Kelly said the official national health advice on the use of face masks, from the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee, had not changed.

He told the Breakfast host, Fran Kelly:

Well, Fran, from the beginning the AHHPC has advised that masks have a use in certain circumstances ... if not used properly they can be counter-productive.

Those certain circumstances, he said, were when people were working in close-contact in high infection risk environments, such as healthcare settings:

We have got a very different situation in Melbourne now where we have community transmission that is continuing to grow and this is another step that has been put into place in that context.

Kelly said he had “no regrets” about not recommending the widespread wearing of face masks earlier in the pandemic. He said he had asked infection control experts yesterday “to have a really close look again” at the evidence around the effectiveness of face masks but at this stage their advice had not changed.

He said the advice was always “in certain circumstances they may need to be used, and those circumstances now exist in Melbourne”.

He said people living in Sydney could consider wearing a face mask if they are in a community transmission hotspot, such as south-west Sydney.

The advice that we have given and that the NSW Health has also given is that people should consider wearing a mask in those places where community transmission has ben found as an abundance of caution.

Updated

It will take 'weeks' for Melbourne's daily coronavirus numbers to reduce, acting CMO says

Australia’s acting chief medical officer, Prof Paul Kelly, has told Radio National he is concerned about the community transmission reported in Batemans Bay and in south-west Sydney, but that the main focus remains on Melbourne.

He said it could take “quite some time” for the number of new cases reported daily in the Victorian capital to drop back down to double or single digits.

Certainly at least weeks ... with this virus we have learned over time that the time between introducing a measure and seeing its effect is at least two weeks and sometimes longer than that …

I am very hopeful and some of the modelling we have around that decreased mobility, people mixing less, and people taking that health advice seriously in Melbourne shows a positive sign.

Kelly said the ADF presence in Victoria, with personnel now in place to help with contact tracing, “will have an effect”:

Patience is required. But for the people in Melbourne please take care and really listen to that advice from the health authorities.

Updated

Urgent health warning issued for Batemans Bay soldiers club

NSW Health has issued an urgent health warning for anyone who visited the Batemans Bay soldiers club on Monday 13 July, Wednesday 15 July, Thursday 16 July and Friday 17 July.

Anyone who attended on these dates has been ordered to immediately get a test for Covid-19 and to self-isolate for a full 14 days, even if their tests are negative.

The order comes as the number of cases linked to the club outbreak has grown to eight, with four new cases recorded overnight – two people who dined at the club, a staff member and a close contact of a previously identified case.

NSW Health said:

Anyone who develops Covid-19 symptoms should also be retested, even if they have had a negative result previously.

People who attended the club on Tuesday 14 July have been advised to monitor themselves for symptoms and get a test if they develop.

A testing site has been set up at the Hanging Rock Oval car park on Beach Road, Batemans Bay, and another pop-up clinic will be set up today. There are also testing clinics at Goulburn Base hospital, Queanbeyan district hospital, Eurobodalla health service (Moruya), South East regional hospital, Cooma district hospital, Jindabyne clinic and Yass district hospital, with pop-up clinics at Malua Bay, Merimbula and Crookwell.

Anyone feeling unwell – even with the mildest of symptoms such as a runny nose or scratchy throat – is urged to seek testing and self-isolate. Do not go to work or catch public transport until you are cleared of Covid-19.

Updated

One Victorian will be allowed up to Canberra – the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, will be in the capital on Thursday to give a budget update and outline new economic support measures including what the jobkeeper payment will look like after 27 September.

According to News.com.au’s Samantha Maiden, the new payment will be reduced from $1,500 a fortnight to $1,000, with tighter eligibility requirements and stricter rules for casual workers. Under the current program, casual workers who had been employed by the one employer for more than 12 months were eligible for the full flat rate. Under the new rules, Maiden reports, they will only be eligible for a part-time rate – regardless of the hours they work.

Updated

The manager of opposition business, Tony Burke, has written to the Speaker and the Senate president to try to work out a set of infection control protocols that would allow parliament to meet in person under stricter health advice. He told the ABC he wants parliament to be conducted in-person, not remotely.

Scott Morrison cancelled the upcoming two-week sitting on Saturday, on the advice of the chief medical officer.

Labor wants to establish a bipartisan working group, which would include the chief medical officer, to “develop the protocols that would enable parliament to sit in a safe manner, as scheduled”.

Burke said parliamentary committees had successfully been conducted remotely for the past few months, but parliament would “lose something” by not being conducted face-to-face. He told Radio National:

It’s whether or not you’re willing to accept that we would lose something further by never having that gathering face to face, which is how parliaments all the world over function. Some people would say it makes no difference, that’s not my view … For a prime minister who has made a claim. to be able to confront them face to face is a different thing.

That’s a true statement, but also a statement that could be made about many workplaces. Particularly schools, which have returned to remote working in Victoria.

Why should parliament be different, asked the RN Breakfast host, Fran Kelly?

Burke said an online parliament should not be the starting point:

I’m not going to start with that or pretend that we don’t give a whole lot away … When you’ve got a government who at every turn has tried to stifle the face-to-face gathering, I am not going to say, ‘Well, there’s a pandemic now, let’s just try to do it all online.’ Face to face makes a difference.

Updated

Warnings over Batemans Bay and Colac outbreaks

There are two outbreaks in regional Australia causing health authorities some concern.

They are at Batemans Bay, on the NSW south coast, and Colac, south-west of Melbourne.

There are now eight positive cases of Covid-19 linked to an outbreak at the Soldiers Club in Batemans Bay, including one staff member. Anyone who attended the club last week has been urged to get tested immediately and self-isolate for 14 days.

In Victoria six cases have been linked to the Australian Lamb Company, an abattoir in Colac. Abattoirs have reasonably high rates of transmission worldwide because they require close-quarters working. One of those who tested positive is a high school student who attends Trinity college in Colac. That school has been closed for cleaning until Thursday.

Updated

The president of the Australian Medical Association of Victoria, Assoc Prof Julian Rait, says the rule mandating the wearing of face masks should be expanded to the major regional cities of Bendigo, Ballarat and Geelong, where a lot of people commute to Melbourne.

Rait told AM:

I think it’s almost inevitable unless we can get ahead of the virus, get ahead of the infection, that we are going to need to do something like that.

He also said Victoria should reconsider the rules surrounding school attendance. At the moment, year 11 and 12 students in Melbourne and the Mitchell shire, as well as year 10 students undertaking VCE or VCAL studies and students who attend specialist schools, are attending on-campus while everyone else is doing remote learning. Rait said every workplace that could conduct its work remotely should do so:

The definition of an essential business seems to be very loose.

He said it was “alarming and surprising” that Victoria had continued to report hundreds of new cases a day despite apparently high adherence to stage three restrictions:

It is rather alarming and surprising that notwithstanding that movements have reduced and social distancing in Victoria seems to be better in Victoria than in other states that this infection has continued to spread.

Updated

Good morning,

The inquiry into the failure in Melbourne’s hotel quarantine system will begin today. For weeks, Victoria’s premier, Daniel Andrews, has been deferring questions about what went wrong with the system, saying that will be a matter for the inquiry. Today the inquiry chair, the former judge Jennifer Coate AO and the senior counsel assisting, Tony Neal QC, will give their opening statements but no witnesses will be called. The inquiry begins at 10am and will be streamed online here.

Meanwhile, NSW has announced tougher border restrictions with Victoria. From midnight on Tuesday, two weeks after the first border restrictions between the two states were put in place, a border zone will be set up along the Murray River and the reasons for cross-border travel will be tightened. All permits will expire and will have to be reissued. Under the new rules travel will only be allowed for work, education and medical care. NSW residents who travel beyond the border zone into Victoria will have to self-isolate for 14-days on their return.

Also on border restrictions, tougher rules requiring people from NSW to undergo 14 days of hotel quarantine, at their own cost, if they travel into WA came into force last night. The new tighter restrictions mirror those in place against travellers from Victoria.

And people in Melbourne are sharing patterns to make reusable cloth masks after the announcement yesterday that, from midnight on Wednesday, it will be compulsory to wear a mask or face covering when you leave your home in Melbourne or the Mitchell shire. The fine for not wearing a mask is $200, although there will be some reasonable excuses. People in regional areas of Victoria, and in NSW, have also been advised to wear masks.

Wayne Gatt, the secretary of the Police Association of Victoria, told ABC those fines would only be issued as a “last resort”. But he said that was because he expected compliance to be high.

I think enforcement should be the last resort, I think everybody in the community should do the right thing or want to do the right thing.

Let’s crack on. You can follow me on Twitter @callapilla and email me at calla.wahlquist@theguardian.com.

Updated

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