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Premier Daniel Andrews says there is no immediate end to the coronavirus crisis, but hopes the AFL season can resume soon.
Mr Andrews told the Today show this morning bringing footy back would be a “real boost” to Victorians.
But he ruled out reopening restaurants and cafes anytime soon as just one more Victorian case of COVID-19 was identified overnight.
There have now been 1329 cases of coronavirus detected across the state, with 7000 tests conducted over the weekend.
The death toll stands at 15.
Mr Andrews said despite the low number of new cases, it was not an invitation to relax tough social distancing measures.
“These numbers are not an invitation for us simply to remove all the rules, their a validation that our strategy is working,” he said.
“There is not a city in the world that wouldn’t swap places with us right now.”
Hinting at what an easing of restrictions might look like, Mr Andrews said some social distancing measures would likely be the first to be relaxed.
But he said he didn’t see an immediate change to the “big economic stuff”, with restaurants and bars likely to remain closed for some time.
He would welcome the return of AFL when appropriate.
“It would be a real boost if we could get footy going again,” he said.
The Premier said Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton was in ongoing talks with the AFL about a possible restart to the season.
“We don’t want a situation where a seasons restarts only to be closed down again,” Mr Andrews said.
“If we let our sense of frustration get the better of us this virus will get away from us.”
LOW NUMBER OF COMMUNITY TRANSMISSIONS
Victoria’s coronavirus detectives have only identified 15 patients in the last week who contracted the virus from an unknown source.
The slowing pace of community transmission has fuelled optimism that some social and economic restrictions can be eased by the middle of next month.
Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt declared on Sunday that Australia had achieved “a sustained and genuine flattening of the curve”, as the rate of new cases stayed below one per cent for seven days in a row.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said the number of recent cases was “fragile but very, very encouraging”, as he conceded the government could reconsider its tough stance on keeping kids away from schools in Term 2 if the trend continued.
The national cabinet meets again on Tuesday, and Mr Hunt said restarting elective surgery and IVF treatments would be a key focus, helped by a strengthened supply of personal protective equipment needed for health workers.
Nine new cases were recorded in Victoria on Sunday — including three who were diagnosed in mandatory quarantine in city hotels — and a man in his 80s became the 15th person to die from the virus.
Police carried out 535 spot checks and slapped 65 fines on Victorians disobeying stay-at-home orders.
In one case, an 18-year-old was arrested after he was caught flouting the law five times around Caroline Springs. He was charged with five counts of persistent contravention of the public health rules, as well as one count of reckless conduct endangering life.
After living side-by-side for almost 25 years, sharing a drink over the fence has become the new norm for Kew East couple Bruce and Janine Deith and their neighbouring friends Wendy and Ian Mills.
Mr Deith said backyard catch-ups with the Mills are in-keeping with the restrictions that have kept him from seeing his family.
“We haven’t even seen our kids or grandkids since this started”, the 68-year-old retiree said.
“We’ve been abiding by everything we’ve been asked to do.”
Out of a statewide total of 1328 coronavirus cases, 134 are confirmed cases of community transmission, up from 119 cases a week ago.
Two cases of community transmission were taken off the total on Sunday after authorities managed to track down the source of both infections.
Victoria’s chief health officer Brett Sutton said testing had ramped up in recent days, which “means we get a clearer picture of how the virus is spreading and are able to take better steps to contain transmission”.
Mr Andrews added that increased testing was giving the state government “confidence that we are being very successful in terms of suppressing this virus”.
Mr Hunt said that nationwide, 184 people remained in hospital, including 51 in intensive care and 33 on ventilators. He said that was “a significant amount” but “dramatically less than anybody had been predicting or warning at this stage”.
“There is more work to be done … We have to maintain what we are doing, but what we are doing is working,” Mr Hunt said.
Mr Andrews said it would be “very challenging” to relax restrictions on places such as bars, cafes and restaurants.
“But there may be, in four weeks time, an important opportunity to ease some restrictions where there is a low risk of transmission of the virus but a high reward in economic terms or simply to say thank you to Australians and Victorians for the amazing job they’ve done,” he said.
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UNEMPLOYMENT CRISIS COMES INTO FULL FOCUS
A quarter of the workforce will not be doing their jobs at the peak of the coronavirus, with a startling new report tipping unemployment will be the worst since the Great Depression.
About 3.4 million Australians are expected to be out of work, according to the Grattan Institute, which also warns half of working households had less than $7000 in the bank before the crisis, leaving them exposed to an extended recession.
The federal government’s $130 billion JobKeeper package will provide $1500 fortnightly wage subsidies for six months to support the jobs of six million workers — some of whom will be still working and some who will be stood down.
Even with the JobKeeper scheme, the government expects unemployment to double to 10 per cent.
But the Grattan Institute report suggests unemployment will reach 12.2 per cent — the worst mark since the 1930s — and potentially soar as high as 15.1 per cent.
Low-income workers, younger Australians and women are more likely to lose their jobs, although the report suggests as many as 80 per cent of part-time workers will receive a pay rise because of the JobKeeper subsidies.
More than 838,000 businesses have registered their interest in the scheme and they can formally enrol with the Australian Taxation Office from Monday, with the cash to flow from the first week of May.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the government’s economic support package, including the JobKeeper package, was “temporary, targeted and proportionate to the challenge we face and will ensure Australia bounces back stronger on the other side”.
The Grattan report, led by household finances program director Brendan Coates, said coronavirus was causing “either the worst or one of the worst economic downturns” in Australia’s history — and it could be even worse than current estimates suggested.
“The longer the downturn goes, and the worse it gets, the less likely the labour market can spring back afterwards,” it said.
The report forecast two-thirds of hospitality jobs would be lost, and that 40 per cent of workers in that industry were short-term casuals who were not eligible for JobKeeper subsidies.
Consumer and business confidence is already at the worst level on record in several surveys, and the report warned businesses and households not impacted by lockdown measures were also scaling back spending.
It said “highly indebted households” would face a “liquidity crunch”, with a quarter of all working households having less than one week’s income saved in the bank.
READ MORE OF THE LATEST CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE, HERE
TEEN THREATENED TO COUGH ON POLICE
A teenager caught breaching social distancing rules on five occasions threatened to cough on a police officer, saying he had coronavirus.
Jack Attwell, 18, of Sunbury, appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court yesterday on charges including reckless conduct endangering life.
His arrest on Saturday night was the first known arrest for repeated breaches of the restrictions in Victoria.
The court heard Attwell’s five breaches of the Chief Health Officer’s directions occurred in the space of 10 days in Melbourne’s outer west.
Police arrested him outside a supermarket in Caroline Springs on Saturday evening.
The court heard police fined Attwell five times for socialising with friends more than 20km from his home, slapping him with a $1652 infringement notice on each occasion.
On one occasion he threatened an officer by saying: “I will cough on you, as I have the virus”.
He was issued an aggregate fine of $2500.
A spokesperson for the Magistrates’ Court confirmed the matter was now concluded.
- Josh Fagan
ANYTIME FITNESS BOSS SAYS HE’S ALL CASHED OUT
Anytime Fitness owner Simon Olive has lost 100 per cent of his revenue since being forced to close his doors last month after COVID-19 restrictions were implemented.
Despite this the 49-year-old remains confident his family-run business in Kew will bounce back.
The franchisee said he has stopped all gym membership payments and has had to apply for the JobKeeper payment to get by.
“We are going to survive this, financially we are in a position where we are going to survive this,” Mr Olive said.
“It’s not going to be fun, it’s going to hurt and it’s going to cost us.
“There are people in the industry who will struggle if they haven’t put a nest egg away.”
Mr Olive hopes his local community in Melbourne’s east will stay connected with his business during this tough time.
He has a handful of staff including subcontractors who have been able to run online classes through social media to keep members motivated during his business’s hibernation period.
Mr Olive also said he is also the coming months to give the gym a significant makeover in order to relaunch as a bigger and better business for his membership base of more than 1000 clients.
While owner of the popular The Botanical Hotel in South Yarra, Rabih Yanni, said his revenue in the past week had plummeted by 90 per cent compared to the same week last year.
“I’m trying to keep positive, I have a team of 54 staff that I’m leading or navigating through this precarious time that we are in,” he said.
After closing for nearly a month Mr Yanni reopened his doors last week and is now offering takeaway food and a has a wine store and grocer.
“We have take-home eat and serve meals, they have brief cooking instructions on them and they serve two to three guests,” Mr Yanni said.
“We have lost 90 per cent of our revenue in the past week compared to the same week this time last year.”
He said about half of his staff will qualify for JobKeeper payments.
– Sophie Elsworth
UNION BOSSES BACK BID TO SAVE VIRGIN
Union bosses representing thousands of airline workers have asked the Andrews Government to help rescue Virgin Australia.
In a letter to the Premier, Transport Workers Union national secretary Michael Kaine and his state counterpart John Berger last night asked the government to explore what options were available to assist the battling airline and secure jobs.
It comes after the company last week announced it may go into administration as it raced to handle $4.8 billion in debt.
The Queensland government has offered $200 million in assistance to the airline and the federal government has promised to underwrite Virgin and Qantas so that domestic flights can run over the next eight weeks.
“This is a very uncertain time for Virgin workers,” Mr Kaine said.
“While all of Australia is experiencing the stresses of altered life, with many people stood down from their jobs, the anxiety among Virgin staff is heightened given the airline’s difficulties and the fact that they worsen in a very public way daily.
“We ask that you consider these workers and to examine if your state’s capacity to give them and their families the certainty they need about their future. “
Anthony De Romeis, a 58-year-old Virgin employee at Melbourne Airport, also wrote to the Andrews Government urging for assistance.
“For younger people with young children and bigger mortgages, the fear is that they won’t be able to support their families if they lose their jobs,” he wrote.
“Victorians are proud that our state has led the way in dealing with this pandemic and we know that many lives have been saved because of this.”
“I’m hoping our state can also show leadership in helping Virgin stay in business.”
Confirmed COVID-19 Cases in VIC
Source: Vic DHSSFAMILY’S HEARTBREAKING GOODBYE AFTER GRANDAD’S COVID-19 FIGHT
A Melbourne family were forced to watch their beloved father take his final breaths on Facetime as he succumbed to COVID-19.
Hillside grandfather Giuseppe Franzoni, 84, died on Friday at Sunshine hospital after a fortnight fighting the deadly virus.
His family have begged for Australians to take social distancing seriously as they say he was “fit as a fiddle” before contracting coronavirus.
“We watched him pass away over a phone,” daughter-in-law Patricia Franzoni said.
“We weren’t allowed to see him in hospital, it was confronting.
“We haven’t touched him, we haven’t seen him. We have a photo of him passing away.”
Mr Franzoni was instead surrounded by two nurses who were with him as he took his final breaths.
“It was horrible, it was the most traumatic moment not being there,” Mrs Franzoni said.
“It will be something we will have to live with for the rest of our lives. It is not something he would’ve wanted, he wanted his children there as he died.
“Now we are organising a funeral for Giuseppe and there can only be ten of us, but there’s 12 in our family.”
Mr Franzoni was said to be in “excellent health” and took great care of himself by walking daily but had pre-existing health conditions of asthma and high blood pressure.
It is understood the father-of-three contracted the virus via community transmission, which is being investigated by the health department.
Read the full version of this story, here
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2020-04-19 22:12:13Z
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