Good morning. The world is waiting for news from Australia’s immigration minister, Alex Hawke, who has yet to decide the fate of Novak Djokovic. Covid is sweeping across Europe as health officials in Australia call for stronger public health messaging about ventilation.
Djokovic has been training with his coach in Melbourneas he awaits a verdict from Hawke. Australian Border Force is investigating whether he incorrectly declared he had not travelled for two weeks before his flight to Australia, despite social media posts showing him in Belgrade before flying out of Spain. The fiasco reveals a much larger problem with Australia’s borders, writes Ben Doherty. “In its incompetent handling of Djokovic’s case, the Australian government has exposed not just one bizarre case, but systemic, structural flaws in the way Australia treats those who arrive on its shores.” Other tennis stars are now speaking out about the situation, with Andy Murray suggesting Djokovic has questions to answer, and Marton Fucsovics saying: “I don’t think Novak has the right to be here.”
Australia needs to improve its public health focus on air quality, rather than hand hygiene, to combat the spread of Covid, experts say. Health officials are calling for the government to implement an air safety campaign and set standards for safe indoor air as awareness of viral airborne transmission lags behind previous messaging. But physical distancing and mask-wearing may still be the most effective prevention methods after a new study suggests the virus loses 90% of its ability to infect us within five minutes of becoming airborne. So is it time to consider switching your reusuable mask for a respirator? Australia’s promised supplies of 51m doses of the Novavax vaccine may be approved within months after the company finally completed its approval applications with the health department.
The WHO is warning Omicron could infect half of Europe’s population within the next two months if immediate action isn’t taken. The region recorded more than 7 million new cases in the first week of 2022. Hans Kluge, the WHO’s Europe director, said while vaccines provided “good protection” against severe disease and death, rising hospital admissions were “challenging health systems” and it was too soon to start treating the coronavirus as an endemic illness.
Australia
Covid-related staff shortages in the disability sector are leaving some people without access to vital services and anger is brewing among providers who say they’ve been left to compete for rapid antigen tests with other businesses and the general public.
A Labor government will commit up to $200m a year from the $4.7bn emergency response fund to disaster prevention and resilience, including measures such as flood levees, sea walls and cyclone shelters. Labor accused the Morrison government of sitting on the emergency respond fund, which had “done nothing to help” prepare the country for natural disasters.
Farmers have committed to work with traditional owners after land in the Liverpool Plains of NSW has been bought back by local farming families. Gomeroi traditional custodians were still seeking assurances that their sacred places were safe and accessible to Indigenous people. Santos has been accused of failing Indigenous groups and treating one of the country’s biggest landholders with a “cavalier attitude” as it faces court action over a proposed expansion of its fracking operations in the Beetaloo Basin.
Queensland police officers have been cleared of wrongdoing in the death of an Indigenous man in custody but a Queensland coroner wants the state’s police force review the use of a controversial neck hold which was used to restrain the man before he died of a heart attack.
The world
Protesters have gathered in Fayetteville, North Carolina, for a second night in a row after a Black man was killed by an off-duty sheriff’s deputy. The deputy told authorities Jason Walker, 37, had jumped on to his vehicle.
The UK’s Metropolitan police have been accused of “deferring to the powerful” by not investigating Downing Street parties held in apparent breach of lockdown rules.
Germany’s climate minister has called for cuts to carbon emissions to be trebled, arguing the country faced a race against time and required a “massive national debate” to achieve his ministry’s goals.
Recommended reads
Almost two decades after The OC first hit the screen, the glossy teen show is well worth a rewatch, writes Nathan Jolly. “The OC was one of those lightning-in-a-bottle shows, intended by its creators to be a cross between The Karate Kid and 90210 … Best of all, The OC was ridiculous, and knew it. The show was filled with self-knowing winks, wry references to its own craziness, and never painted its faulted characters as entirely aspirational – despite how many pool-houses and ponies they possessed.”
Michael Sun grew up in a household eating copious amounts of chilli at every mealtime: heapings of chopped bird’s eye on eggs, extremely liberal lashings of Tabasco in popcorn, huge dollops of hot sauce consumed straight from the spoon. Sun shares this 10-minute chilli oil recipe that suits everything from toasties to tofu and spoonfuls straight in your gob. “Does too much of this chilli oil make my stomach ache with an intense burning sensation as I lay awake at 3am? Yes. Will I continue making it and then overindulging anyway? Also yes,” Sun says.
In our weekly interview about objects, Rhys Nicholson talks cooking, heirlooms and airport mishaps. “A few years ago, I was heading to the airport in Auckland at 6am and realised I didn’t have my passport with me,” the comedian says. “I was coming back to Australia and was going to land and go straight to shows. It was too late to cancel them and my agent was calling people in a panic. It was the most useless I’ve ever felt in my life.”
Listen
When released from prison, Darko Desic faces deportation to a country that no longer exists. Desic turned himself in to police in Sydney 30 years after escaping jail. In this episode of Full Story, Ben Doherty explores how Desic’s friends and family are pleading for the Australian government to show mercy and let him stay.
Full Story is Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.
Sport
US Open champion Emma Raducanu has been defeated 6-0, 6-1 by Elena Rybakina in Sydney after returning to the court for the first time since contracting Covid in December. Andy Murray won his first match of the season with a brisk 6-3, 6-1 triumph over Viktor Durasovic.
Media roundup
Non-Covid patients in South Australia will be moved to private hospitals to open up more hospital beds for Covid patients across Adelaide as the state prepares for an Omicron peak in two weeks, reports the Advertiser. Victorian schools are yet to receive government guidelines on minimising Covid infections just weeks from the start of term one, reports the Age.
And if you’ve read this far …
Residents of Hamilton in Ontario, Canada woke up to find their streets covered in soya bean husk instead of snow after the husks were released in to a filter malfunction at a nearby factory.
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