Good morning, this is Emilie Gramenz bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Tuesday 28 July.
Top stories
Australians are becoming more worried about the threat of Covid-19 and a significant proportion fear lockdowns will spread to other regions over the coming months, according to the latest Guardian Essential poll. Yesterday marked the worst day of the outbreak so far, with Victoria recording 532 new cases and six deaths. In NSW the Apollo restaurant in Potts Point in Sydney’s east, Mounties club in Mount Pritchard in the city’s west and the nearby Pritchard’s hotel have all closed for deep cleaning. Meanwhile, workers in residential aged care including nurses will receive two weeks of paid pandemic leave due to a landmark Fair Work Commission decision.
Countries across Asia are trying to fend off an apparent second wave of infections. China and Hong Kong have both reported rising coronavirus figures. Vietnam is evacuating 80,000 people from the central city of Danang and reimposing disease-prevention measures after new cases were detected for the first time in more than three months. Europe is also bracing itself. Belgium has introduced a series of further restrictions and warned of a second “complete lockdown”, while Germany plans to introduce obligatory testing for all travellers returning from regions considered to be high-risk hotspots. In the US, Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, has tested positive, while the top health official Dr Anthony Fauci says an effective vaccine is possible by October but more likely by November.
The Trump administration is pressing Australia to increase freedom of navigation exercises in the South China Sea. Australia’s foreign minister, Marise Payne, and defence minister, Linda Reynolds, are to meet their US counterparts in Washington DC on Tuesday to discuss extending military cooperation in the South China Sea as well as countering online disinformation. Labor has urged the Coalition to use the talks to ask what the US is doing to ease tensions with China.
Australia
Queensland Liberal National MPs have been actively discouraged from engaging with voluntary assisted dying campaigners or holding community forums on proposed new laws, a retired MP has said. It has prompted concerns the party could shelve reform efforts if it wins government.
A Melbourne private school has been criticised for introducing coronavirus face mask guidelines that suggest students can only wear plain masks in colours that match the college uniform. The school said it would not stop students from wearing masks that do not meet the rules.
Australian states have agreed to a dramatic overhaul of “outdated” defamation laws in an attempt to protect public interest journalism and curb escalating damages payouts. The changes were signed off on Monday by the council of attorneys general.
Organisers have vowed that Tuesday’s Black Lives Matter rally will go ahead in Sydney after the NSW court of appeal effectively upheld an earlier decision that the protest was a prohibited public assembly under public health regulations.
The world
Downtown Portland saw fresh clashes overnight between anti-racism protesters and federal officers using teargas, flash-bangs and crowd control munitions. For the 60th night, protesters gathered to mark the killing of George Floyd by demanding action against police brutality.
New Zealand’s government says it is the first in the world to produce a set of standards for how public agencies should use algorithms. While algorithms increasingly drive decision-making by officials, critics claim the outcomes can be inaccurate and discriminatory.
Thai police have opened an internal investigation after charges were dropped against the billionaire Red Bull heir in a fatal hit-and-run case amid outrage over a perceived culture of impunity for the rich.
Norway’s government has begun tearing down a landmark building adorned with giant murals by Pablo Picasso. The move is part of efforts to rebuild government headquarters damaged in the 2011 terrorist attack by the rightwing extremist Anders Breivik.
Recommended reads
Growing up, Sam Douglas was treated the same as her white sister but one of her first clear memories as a child is knowing that she looked different. It was not until she met her birth mother that she finally felt she belonged somewhere. “The word ‘colour blind’ is how my parents treated me. They thought that if I wasn’t treated any differently to my adoptive sister, there wasn’t a problem. The truth is, I desperately needed specific support to get me through those years.”
Greg Jericho suspects the 50% of Australians expecting the country to be back to normal in six months are being very optimistic. He writes today that the latest survey by the ABS on the impact of Covid-19 on households does not bode well for the next lot of jobs numbers. Still, just over half of those surveyed expected life to return to normal within six months.
Listen
What do we know about the long-term effects of Covid-19? There is growing evidence from around the world that some people continue to experience debilitating symptoms months after contracting the virus. They have been dubbed the “long-haulers”. On Full Story today, Melissa Davey explains how patients in Australia who were diagnosed in March and April are faring more than three months later.
Full Story is Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.
Sport
The influential administrator Moya Dodd says denying women in football is “like trying to defy gravity”. The groundwork for Australia and New Zealand’s successful Women’s World Cup bid was laid years ago but the biggest impact still lies ahead. The longer story of how the rights to host the Women’s World Cup were won is a lesson in the slow diplomacy of football governance.
Lewis Hamilton has been forced to clarify that he is “not against a vaccine” for Covid-19, after inadvertently sharing an anti-vaxxer post on his Instagram account. The 35-year-old Formula One star shared a post by the internet personality King Bach, which suggested Bill Gates was lying when talking about coronavirus vaccine trials.
Media roundup
Two Victorian government agencies withdrew their staff from overseeing hotel quarantine over fears they were operating in an unsafe environment, the Age reports. Labor’s shadow minister for agriculture and resources, Joel Fitzgibbon, has accused the party’s influential internal environment lobby of putting blue-collar jobs and lower energy prices at risk, the Australian says. And in (where else?) the NT News, a quirky crocodile called Stampy, who likes to dress up, is winning hearts.
Coming up
A Black Lives Matter protest at the Domain in Sydney is set to go ahead at midday despite the NSW court of appeal confirming the rally would be unlawful.
And if you’ve read this far …
The only known wolf family in California has produced a new litter of pups – its fourth – contributing to a gradual recovery of the species in the US west. There are now at least 14 wolves in the pack. The family is only the second confirmed wolf pack in California in the past 100 years, and was identified in 2017.
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