And with that, we’ll leave you for the day. Thanks for following along.
Summary
Let’s wrap up the main developments of the day.
- Victoria announced a plan to reopen restaurants and pubs, beginning from 1 June.
- But patrons in Victoria will need to provide some brief personal details to enter venues for tracing purposes.
- The fractured relationship between Australia and China has continued, with the trade minister Simon Birmingham revealing his counterparts are not returning his phone calls.
- NSW wants state borders to reopen, but Queensland is holding firm (the NSW-Victoria border has remained open throughout the crisis).
- Queensland authorities are investigating a case where an aged care worker kept working while waiting for her Covid-19 test results. She tested positive.
Updated
Covid-19 cases confirmed at two more Victorian businesses
The Victorian Department of Health and Human Services says it is working with two Melbourne businesses where Covid-19 cases have been confirmed.
The businesses are a Dominos outlet in Fairfield, in the inner north-east, and The Comfort Group, a bedmaker with headquarter at Deer Park in Melbourne’s west.
“While the risk of transmission is low, as a precaution the Domino’s shop has been closed for two weeks for thorough cleaning. All 16 staff members will be tested and will be quarantined for 14 days,” the department statement read.
“As a precaution, The Comfort Group site has been closed since Friday and will remain closed until at least Wednesday while investigations continue. A deep clean has already been undertaken. The department is currently working to acquire all relevant information and ensure all public health procedures are followed.
“All close and casual contacts will be tested, and quarantine requirements are being implemented as necessary.”
Updated
The government earlier today confirmed two women in Port Macquarie have been charged over allegedly fraudulent bushfire and Covid-19 welfare claims.
A government statement said it was alleged the women used 25 assumed identities to try to claim more than $27,000 in welfare payments they were not entitled to. The statement said more than $10,000 was paid.
They allegedly made 25 fraudulent claims for the Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment and one fraudulent jobseeker payment claim.
The women were arrested on Thursday, granted bail after being charged with eight counts of obtaining financial advantage by deception. They will appear in court on 22 July 2020.
If you missed my colleague Daniel Hurst’s piece looking at what the Australian government has been doing on the board of the World Health Organisation, which we published this morning, you can read it here.
Labor’s candidate for Eden Monaro, Kristy McBain, has just done a Facebook live campaign catch-up/Q&A - the closest thing we can have to a town hall in the era of Covid-19 and physical distancing.
McBain took a question on the $1,100-a-fortnight jobseeker unemployment benefit from Guardian Australia.
She said:
The rate of Newstart is clearly inadequate to live off, $40 a day - I would challenge anybody to live off that. It is too low, it does prevent people getting back into the workforce and getting a job ...
[On] jobseeker, we can’t just snap back. We can’t go back to business as usual. Everyone is feeling a bit uncertain at the moment and we need some certainty. We need the government to outline what will happen after September.
McBain also noted the jobkeeper wage subsidy will be reviewed in June, and said it should consider industries “left behind” and why not everyone was eligible for the $1,500 fortnightly payment.
McBain concluded that people are looking “for vision and a plan” and she’s not sure the government is providing it while Labor will outline priorities that drive “towards prosperity and hope”.
Tasmania update
There were no new cases reported in Tasmania overnight, the premier Peter Gutwein told reporters earlier today.
But he warned residents not to become complacent, saying it would leave to a second wave of the virus.
“A number of countries around the world have already found that they have been hit by second wave. We don’t want to go through that, that would be devastating both in Tasmania and in this country,” Gutwein said on Sunday.
AAP reports that Gutwein warned some businesses may not survive if the state has to bring back stricter restrictions.
“They will find that having had to recapitalise once, that the second time around they simply won’t come back, so we need to step through this carefully and sustainably,” he said.
No fresh coronavirus cases were confirmed in Tasmania on Sunday, leaving the state’s total number of infections so far at 226.
There are 31 Tasmanians currently dealing with the condition, as 195 people have recovered.
Under eased restrictions from Monday, restaurants and cafes will be allowed to have up to 10 people seated inside.
Other gatherings of up to 10 people are also permitted, including for real estate purposes, small religious gatherings and weddings.
While there is a bit of a lull, I might point you to this lovely feature by colleague Elias Visontay.
With doubt swirling over the future of Virgin airlines, many will be thinking back to the demise of Ansett, about two decades earlier.
As Elias finds, Ansett’s legacy has lived on in some quite unexpected ways.
AAP’s Anna Harrington reports that A-League teams could resume training in June before the competition aims to complete its season in a hub format by the end of August.
Football Federation Australia (FFA) chief executive James Johnson today said officials wanted to complete the remaining regular season games, plus finals.
“We’d like the remaining part of the season to be finished by the end of August,” Johnson told Fox Sports News.
The players could be training as early as June as a team and then we’ve given ourselves that window between June and August to finish the season.
We’re in a little bit of a different situation to the AFL and the NRL in that we only have 27 regular-season matches left and five more play-off matches.
Starting in August is certainly the very, very latest we’d want to restart but we’re hoping that we’re going to have players up and running again on the football pitch training from June at the earliest.
The A-League has been suspended since March.
Updated
The NSW government said in a statement earlier today that more than 1,200 people who were sleeping rough were “helped into temporary accommodation through the rapid expansion of assertive outreach to prevent the spread of Covid-19”.
Minister for families, communities and disability services Gareth Ward said:
Our intense work since the beginning of April has resulted in many people sleeping rough accepting the offer of temporary accommodation for the first time in their lives.
Updated
The Victoria premier, Daniel Andrews, today announced plans to reopen restaurants, bars and pubs from next month.
The Liberal state opposition, which has been increasingly critical of the government’s response, is unimpressed with the announcement.
Opposition leader Michael O’Brien said:
Daniel Andrews will belatedly get ‘back on the beers’ even before the majority of Victorian students can get back in the classroom.
It again shows the wrong priorities of this Labor premier.
Our schools should be back already and our small hospitality businesses should be open – just as they are in other states.
Victorian schools will start to reopen for face to face classes from 26 May, before all students return on 9 June.
Updated
The WA health minister, Roger Cook, says that the state has identified a historical case “from about seven weeks ago”:
This case is not currently active and is no risk to the community.
The woman in her 30s from the metropolitan area had a PCR test in March as she was a close contact of a confirmed case and was showing some symptoms. So she did the right thing, she went out and got herself tested.
However, the PCR test result came back as equivocal, which means the test, at the time, was not felt to be conclusive enough to provide her with a positive response, result.
Cook says the state has now recorded 557 cases, including five active cases and one person in a hospital.
Updated
McGowan says bars and restaurants in WA will be able to reopen for dine-in services from Monday.
He says more than 8,800 businesses have downloaded the state’s Covid safety plan, which provides guidelines for businesses to reopen.
From tomorrow, one of the best things we can do is support each through this pandemic and return to our favourite local cafe or restaurant and resume our sport and recreation as well and help get businesses back to work and back into operations.
Venues will be able to accommodate up to 20 people from tomorrow, says McGowan.
Updated
WA update
The WA premier, Mark McGowan, has just started speaking in Perth.
McGowan says there were no new cases reported in WA overnight.
Updated
The social services minister, Anne Ruston, says the government will provide $9m to local community groups and organisations to support Australia’s volunteers:
The bushfires had a devastating impact on many of our people and communities across the country and we are now living through a global pandemic.
Volunteers freely give their time and skills to support others and will play a key role in communities over the next few months. This funding recognises the sacrifices they make to help deliver vital services to those who need it most.
The funding comes ahead of National Volunteer Week on Monday.
The government said the funding would be shared by 2,698 organisations.
It said: “In total, New South Wales community groups will receive $2,909,455, Victoria $2,381,770, Queensland $1,778,170, Western Australia $915,010, South Australia $611,440, Tasmania $312,350, ACT$179,100 and the Northern Territory $119,910.”
Updated
Howdy folks, Luke Henriques-Gomes here taking over from Naaman Zhou.
Thanks to Naaman for his work today. I’ll be with you into the evening. Get in touch at luke.henriques-gomes@theguardian.com or over Twitter @lukehgomes.
Over lunch, you can read this piece from The Conversation on why it was economically reasonable to have a shutdown:
Updated
And here is my colleague Paul Karp’s full write-up of trade minister Simon Birmingham’s comments on China earlier today.
Birmingham told Australian businesses to look into diversifying away from China and “balance the risk and reward” of trading with the superpower.
“I would, of course, encourage businesses, where they can see equal reward or similar reward, by spreading their risk across numerous markets, to do so. And that that would be wise business practice.”
Hazzard warns people in New South Wales to still stay 1.5 metres apart, and to not see friends if they are sick, even if it is just a runny nose.
I would just like to warn everybody that we are still vulnerable. We have to temper it in a way that when we go out, we’re still exercising the social distancing.
The 1.5 metres is a magic figure – it can keep you safe! I’ve observed today, people at cafes and restaurants, and many of them do not appear to be exercising that 1.5 metres. I’ll just say to them – please be careful.
We’re living in dangerous times. We can still have fun, but they’re dangerous times until we sort this virus issue out.
Updated
NSW records one new case
New South Wales health minister Brad Hazzard is speaking now. He announces that as of 8pm last night, NSW only had one new case.
However, he says the source of that transmission is unknown, which means people should be on high alert.
Hazzard says that he has seen a lot of people returning to the outdoors and to cafes.
Moving about Sydney this morning, I think it’s fair to say that there has been, in a sense, the great NSW bust-out.
People are rewarding themselves for many weeks of sacrifice and having themselves locked inside.
Updated
Palaszczuk won't follow Berejiklian's open borders call, says it would be 'negligent'
Palaszczuk has also ruled out an easing of Queensland’s border restrictions, after New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian called for borders to be “open as soon as possible”.
Berejiklian said earlier today she had been pressuring state premiers to open their borders and that “I don’t want people to say ‘I can go to Auckland’ before I go to Brisbane”.
Palaszczuk says that the border will remain closed “while there is active community transmission in NSW and Victoria”.
“It would be absolutely negligent of me to lift those restrictions with that community transmission happening down in NSW and Victoria.”
She adds that border closures will be reviewed at the end of every month.
Updated
Six close contacts of the Rockhampton nurse have been identified, and have tested negative, Palaszczuk says.
She also said that she will send the chief health officer, Dr Jeannette Young, and the health minister, Steven Miles, to Rockhampton tomorrow.
Queensland records no new cases
Queensland has recorded no new cases of coronavirus.
That includes no new cases at the Rockhampton nursing home where a nurse tested positive a few days ago.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says that 235 staff and residents have been tested at the aged care home, all with negative results.
They are still waiting for 37 tests that are outstanding.
“But honestly we are very relieved with the news that we are hearing at the moment,” Palaszczuk says. She reminds people in Rockhampton to get tested if they have any mild symptoms.
There are now only 12 active cases in Queensland.
Updated
Australia’s young people, aged 13 to 17, have been hit especially hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, a study from Unicef has found.
It found 67% of young people were worried about their education being disrupted or held back.
40% of those surveyed felt that the discussion around issues that do affect young people, like school closures, were framed more in terms of the impact on parents, carers and the economy.
Updated
State borders should open "as soon as possible", Berejiklian says
NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian says she has been pressuring other premiers to open their state borders to stimulate the economy.
“You have to get those borders open as soon as possible,” she says.
“I have quietly been having a jibe at all my state colleagues who have kept their borders closed,” she tells Sky News. “NSW didn’t and Victoria didn’t.”
She says this is for the tourism and manufacturing industries.
“The sooner the borders come down the better. I don’t want people to say I can go to Auckland before I go to Brisbane, or to Perth.”
NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian is being interviewed on Sky News.
National cabinet is not meeting for another two weeks – the first week without weekly meetings. She is asked if this is sign of confidence.
Berejiklian says that is to allow states to now move “at our own pace” a little bit as they ease restrictions.
Health minister Jenny Mikakos says that Victoria cannot immediately return to a full resumption of elective surgery.
“Our medical experts are very supportive of this graduated approach,” she says.
Updated
Victoria’s deputy chief health officer, Dr Annaliese van Diemen, is speaking now. She is asked extensively first up about her tweet about Captain Cook.
She says she is focused on dealing with the pandemic and managing the “very large” public health team.
“I regret that it caused a distraction but we are focused on moving on,” she says.
There are seven new cases, she says, two linked to Cedar Meats, three in hotel quarantine and two others being investigated.
Updated
Victorians will have to give name and phone number to enter restaurant or pub
Every patron will have to give their first name, last name and mobile phone number if they want to enter Victoria’s reopened restaurants and dining areas of pubs.
Daniel Andrews has just said this will be mandatory for contact tracing.
A condition of being in that venue will be providing limited details of who you are. For one purpose only: so you can be contacted if there is a positive case.
If you want to get back to restaurants, cafes and pubs, then download the app. I’ve done it. Everyone on this stage has done it.
Updated
Andrews says that the 20 person limit – twice the current limit in New South Wales – is based on data and is safe in the opinion of the chief health officer.
We are doing more testing than any other state. We have a really good handle on how much virus is out there in the Victorian community. That can change though.
We are giving people notice but it is always predicated on these continuing, stable test results.
He clarifies that, like in NSW, the public bar part of a pub will not be open. It will be “the bistro, the dining area” of a pub that will open.
A reporter asks how this will be enforced.
Andrews:
I am confident these venues will do the right thing. It is in their interest. They will be closed if they don’t follow these rules.
Enforcement will be done by combination of the public health team and Victoria police. If there is a headcount that needs to be done, then there absolutely will be.
Updated
Daniel Andrews says however that work from home will not change.
He says that by mid-July as hospitality opens, the government messaging will change from “stay home” to “stay safe”.
But the policy of “if you can work from home, work from home” will not change.
“The advice from the chief health officer [has always been] if we have millions of people going to office environments when they don’t need to be there, pressing lift buttons, sharing kitchens, sharing bathrooms, that presents the biggest risk.”
“We have the highest per capita testing rate in the country”, health minister Jenny Mikakos says.
“Get tested”, Andrews says. “Even if you have the mildest symptoms.”
Andrews adds that he is not announcing lifting restrictions on gyms or outdoor gatherings yet.
Victorian restaurants to open 1 June, and 100 patrons by mid-July
Premier Dan Andrews has just announced a huge lifting of restrictions in Victoria to come.
On 1 June, cafes, restaurants, and the dining areas of pubs and clubs will reopen with up to 20 patrons indoors.
Three weeks later, on 22 June, that limit would go up to 50 patrons.
In mid-July, that will go up again to 100 patrons.
Andrews says that patrons will still need to abide by distancing rules if this is to happen:
Based on the results coming in, showing very low numbers, numbers that are not part of a cluster, gives us confidence that today we can foreshadow [this reopening].
This is a significant announcement, but it is based on people getting tested and those results remaining stable.
Updated
Victorian premier Daniel Andrews is speaking now.
He says Victoria has completed a testing blitz since restrictions eased slightly.
We set a target of 50,000 tests this week, I can confirm for you we have done something like 92,000 tests. And we have results back for 61,000.
Updated
Birmingham is asked whether Australia should consider diversifying its trade relations to be less reliant on China.
He says that Australia has grown its trade with Japan, Korea, Vietnam and Canada in recent years.
Speers asks him why two-way trade with China has increased.
Birmingham says that is due to the market and private companies and not the government:
China’s economy has continued to grow in that time, which indeed, has seen it drive greater demand for goods and services from right around the region – not just from Australia, but from many other countries.
This is an important point, government doesn’t determine who businesses sell their goods and services to. Australian businesses make those commercial decisions. Now they need to balance the risk and reward of whom they trade with.
Updated
Birmingham also confirms that Australia could escalate the issue to the World Trade Organisation if the deadlock continues:
I’ve publicly indicated that we reserve all rights in that regard.
We’ll decide the next steps, which may involve a WTO dispute. Australia has used WTO disputes with other valued partners around the world in recent years. I’ve initiated them with Canada in relation to certain wine practices. With India in relation to certain sugar industry practices.
This is about using the system that we strongly support of rules-based international trade, to ensure that where we think that things are operating outside of those rules, we call them out and we seek a resolution through the independent umpire.
Updated
Earlier, Speers also asked Birmingham whether the beef and barley issues were politically motivated.
“You don’t really believe this has nothing to do with Australia calling for an independent inquiry [into the origins of Covid-19]?” he asked.
Birmingham said he “can understand why people would seek to draw links” after some previous “unhelpful remarks” from the Chinese ambassador.
But he says the issue is regulatory:
Chinese authorities have been clear that in relation to the barley matter, in relation to the beef matter, these are long-standing issues, and that they are regulatory trade matters. We are taking that at face value and engaging in good faith.
Birmingham says Australia has lodged an extensive response in Beijing with more than 10,000 pages of evidence and analysis to counter the barley dumping claim.
Updated
China not returning trade minister's calls
Trade minister Simon Birmingham confirms that he has still not spoken to the Chinese trade minister as trade tensions rise over barley and beef.
ABC Insiders host David Speers asks him if he has been able to get in touch.
“I know you’ve been trying all week to talk to your counterpart in China. Has he or anyone returned your calls?” Speers asks.
“We have made a request for me to have discussions with my Chinese counterpart,” Birmingham says. “That request has not been met with a call being accommodated at this stage.”
The trade minister adds that “government to government, we have had lots of communication, we have had lots of dialogue”.
Updated
Pubs, cafes and restaurants in Victoria will be allowed to open on 1 June, according to a report in the Sunday Herald Sun.
The newspaper is reporting this morning that the number of patrons will be limited to 10 at a time.
We’ll bring you more on that story when we get it.
Updated
The head of the Covid-19 coordination commission, Nev Power, has just said that international travel – and related businesses – will “take the longest to come back”.
Power told Sky News this morning that hospitality and the arts will come back relatively soon as parts of the economy reopen.
“Some of the parts that are going to take longer is anything associated with international travel, that’s going to take the longest to come back,” he said.
Trade minister Simon Birmingham will be on the ABC’s Insiders this morning, where he will certainly be asked about Australia’s trade relationship with China, among other things.
Investigation launched into Rockhampton nurse
The Queensland government has launched an investigation into the Rockhampton nurse who worked at an aged care home and tested positive for coronavirus.
The North Rockhampton Nursing Centre is currently in lockdown and 193 people have so far tested negative. Thirty-five low-risk residents have been moved from the home, AAP reports.
The state’s chief health officer, Dr Jeannette Young, said officials were investigating the circumstances of the nurse’s testing.
This will include why the woman, who worked in the reception area of the facility, returned to work while waiting for her test results.
The health minister, Steven Miles, said it was unacceptable that the nurse had gone to work while having symptoms of the Covid-19 disease.
“To have this happen in a Queensland Health facility is very disappointing,” he said. “I have asked the director general to covey to all 100,000 staff that they need to go above and beyond what the chief health officer has advised.”
The nurse did not providing hands-on care to the residents, Young said.
Updated
Good Morning
Welcome to the coronavirus live blog for Sunday 17 May.
I’m Naaman Zhou and I’ll be taking you through the morning.
Health authorities are warning Australians to approach their new-found freedoms with care, for fear of sparking a second wave of Covid-19.
States and territories have begun lifting restrictions on outdoor and indoor gatherings and business operations, following weeks of measures to limit the spread of coronavirus.
On Saturday, deputy chief medical officer Michael Kidd said people cannot afford to be complacent.
“The pandemic is not over. The risk to vulnerable people remains significant,” he told reporters in Canberra.
Australian Medical Association president Tony Bartone said there was still a risk the virus could flare up as hot spots or small outbreaks.
The number of cases in Australia stood at 7,036 on Saturday after 20 new cases were reported over 24 hours.
The death toll from the pandemic remained at 98.
The new cases included 11 in Victoria – which now stands at 98 – with two of those connected to the west Melbourne abattoir cluster.
Elsewhere, a McDonald’s restaurant in the north Melbourne suburb of Fawkner has recorded an additional case, with the outlet’s cluster growing to 11.
There was only one new case in Queensland, with 193 people testing negative for the virus at the North Rockhampton Nursing Centre after a nurse was diagnosed with the disease on Friday.
Updated
