Australia is moving closer to having restrictions eased but authorities want to see an increased use of the Government's COVIDSafe tracing app before any discussion of opening up some businesses and activities is considered by National Cabinet.
In a joint press conference, the Prime Minister, the Chief Medical Office and the Aged Care Minister announced a range of measures and gave Australia an update on the fight against coronavirus.
Scott Morrison also announced an additional $205 million support package would be paid to aged care providers to help with their additional costs.
A plan to conduct "cohort testing" on some elective surgery patients and healthcare workers was also outlined by the Chief Medical Officer.
Here are some of the other key points from their latest press conference.
Easing restrictions and contact-tracing app downloads
The discussion about potential easing of restrictions has been brought forward by a week to next Friday, May 8.
Both the Scott Morrison and Dr Brendan Murphy spoke repeatedly of the link between app downloads and relaxing public health measures put in place to help slow the spread of coronavirus.
Mr Morrison said 11 of the National Cabinet's 15 conditions for considering a relaxation of restrictions had been met and an increase in users of the COVIDSafe app was "critical" to next week's meeting.
"We need that tool so that we can open up the economy. And that's why it's so important," he said.
"So if you haven't downloaded the app yet, download it. If you know someone who hasn't downloaded the app yet, and you have, encourage them to do so.
"Because, if you're doing that, then that is enabling the National Cabinet to be able to ease these restrictions next Friday. It's about putting the health protections in place so we can ensure that the coronavirus does not get a run again."
No specific target number of users was mentioned.
"The higher the number of people who have downloaded the app, then the safer you are," Mr Morrison said.
Dr Murphy said contact-tracing capacity had to be really good before restrictions were eased.
"We've proven that we're tracing contacts very quickly at the moment with those small numbers of cases, and the methodology is really up to speed — except for one thing," he said.
"Except for the app uptake. And that's not green at the moment, as the Prime Minister has said. We need the app uptake to be higher before we can say that final piece in the jigsaw puzzle of contact tracing is there.
About 3.5 million people have so far downloaded the app and registered their details.
Additional $205 million to support aged care sector
The money will help aged care facilities screen visitors and staff so people can continue to visit relatives and will also assist with the increased cost of personal protective equipment.
For each resident in a metropolitan aged care home, the Government will provide a $900 support payment while for those in regional Australia, where costs are higher, $1,350 will be given for each occupant, the Minister for Aged Care, Youth and Sport Senator Richard Colbeck said.
"This will contribute towards the genuine extra costs that they are incurring as they manage COVID-19's outbreak," he said.
"They are screening staff every day as they come and go from their shifts — particularly as they come in — so that we don't get COVID-19 into the facility. That takes them time.
"They will be screening visitors as they come into the facilities to ensure that we don't get COVID-19 outbreaks."
Only 23 residential care facilities in Australia have had outbreaks of coronavirus, including Western Sydney's Newmarch House where 12 people have died after an employee worked six shifts despite displaying mild symptoms.
Senator Colbeck said 15 of the affected facilities were now free of COVID-19.
The Government has given aged care facilities more than $850 million to help them deal with the pandemic.
No widescale testing of kids but CMO wants "cohort testing"
Dr Murphy said there was increasing evidence from Europe to show that transmission of coronavirus among children was not happening.
But he did speak about plans to test some aged care workers, healthcare workers and elective surgery patients — all of which would be voluntary.
"We want to assure the community and sample sections of the community just to make sure that our confidence that we don't have significant asymptomatic transmission is correct," Dr Murphy said.
He said an "active surveillance" plan to test healthy, asymptomatic people in the community wasn't an effective way of monitoring the spread of the virus, given the low amount of positive results being returned across Australia to date.
So far, more than 570,000 people have been tested for coronavirus across Australia.
Significant drop in net overseas migration expected
The Prime Minster gave an update on the latest expectations for net overseas migration and warned of "quite significant falls".
A drop of 30 per cent is expected from the 2018-2019 figures in the current financial year.
However, that increases massively for the next year, with a forecast drop of 85 per cent expected in the 2020-2021 financial year.
Given how important those figures are for the economy, those drops could lead to the impact of the coronavirus continuing into next year.
"That is a significant change," Mr Morrison said.
"It is not expected to be a long term change in terms of net overseas migration."
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2020-05-01 09:00:52Z
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