Latest updates
New Zealand reports 13 new cases, further restrictions could be decided later today
By James Massola
New Zealand’s Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield and Health Minister Chris Hipkins are providing an update on the new coronavirus update in Auckland.
There are 12 new confirmed cases and one probable case in the community reported on Friday, Bloomfield says.
Two of the 13 new cases are in Tokoroa, a city two hours south of Auckland, and are part of the Auckland cluster.
All of the 13 cases bar one are linked to the existing cluster. The 13th person with the virus is in hospital and that case is still being investigated.
There are now 38 people linked to the Auckland cluster in a managed quarantine facility.
The 12 new cases takes New Zealand’s total number of coronavirus cases to 1251 infections.
At present, New Zealand has 48 active cases with 30 linked to the community outbreak.
A record number of more than 15,000 tests were carried out on Thursday and 26,000 in the last 48 hours - but at present only people who are symptomatic are being tested.
A total of 514 close contacts linked to the current community outbreak have been identified and 83 per cent of those people have been contacted within 48 hours.
Contact tracing and testing will be a priority over the next few days, Hipkins says, and all of the cases detected so far are connected and that “this is good news”.
There’s no evidence of COVID-19 outside of Auckland that isn’t linked to the Auckland cluster, the Health Minister adds.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is due to announce at 3.30pm AEST whether the stage three lockdown in Auckland will be extended beyond Friday and at this stage, an extension looks likely.
That announcement will come after cabinet meets in the early afternoon on Friday.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews to give COVID-19 update at midday
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews is listed to give the daily COVID-19 update at midday.
We plan to have a live stream of his update on the blog.
NSW records nine new coronavirus cases from more than 29,000 tests
By Mary Ward
NSW has recorded nine new coronavirus cases in the latest 24-hour reporting period.
Five of the cases were locally acquired and linked to known cases, including an employee at Dooleys Catholic Club at Lidcombe and a staff member at Liverpool Hospital reported in the media yesterday.
NSW Health said in a statement there is no evidence of any ongoing risk to patients and staff from recent cases at Liverpool Hospital and patients should continue to visit the hospital to receive the medical care they need.
An additional Tangara School for Girls student has tested positive, bringing the size of that cluster to 21.
As reported earlier today, a student at St Vincent's College, Potts Point has also tested positive. This case currently has no known source and is currently under investigation. The school has been closed for cleaning today.
The remaining three cases are in returned travellers in hotel quarantine.
The single-digit case number, lower than that of previous days, came as the state recorded 29,696 tests during the same period.
There have now been 3747 coronavirus cases in NSW since the start of the pandemic.
There are currently 131 coronavirus cases being treated by NSW Health, of which 89 per cent are in out-of-hospital care.
There are six people with the virus in ICU, five of whom are on ventilators.
Stood down Qantas staff to work in Victoria's aged care homes
By Marissa Calligeros
Qantas staff who have been stood down during the pandemic will soon be working in Victoria's aged care homes as the race continues to stem COVID-19 outbreaks at 125 facilities.
The airline staff will be trained to work as aged care assistants under a trial program, Alison McMillan, the Australian government's Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer, told radio station 3AW this morning.
Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer Alison McMillan.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
"They won't do personal care as I understand it, but they can assist with feeding, moving, just general assistance in the facilities," said Ms McMillan, who is also the clinical lead of the Victorian Aged Care Response Centre.
"That was one of the ideas that we had in the response centre. We know that airline staff from Qantas ... are used to working with people. There are significant numbers not currently working so
there's a program up and running – a pilot program – to train them to do some assistant work in aged care so that we can supplement staff."
Ms McMillan said Qantas staff who volunteer for the project are vetted before starting training.
"[The program] will be evaluated to see how effective the training was ... [and] if it's successful then it will be expanded," she said.
"We also need more staff because just putting on and removing the PPE ... creates a great deal more workload and that's something we learnt from Newmarch, and so you need more staff generally than you would on a normal basis."
Whittlesea man fined for 10th time amid latest COVID-19 fines
By Rachael Dexter
The daily data on fines given out to Victorians caught breaching the Chief Health Officer’s directions has just landed and there are some, ahem, interesting examples in the list - including someone who has copped their 10th fine in a row.
A police spokesman said the repeat offender is a Whittlesea man who told officers he was in the suburb of Richmond to visit work colleagues, but had no evidence to prove it.
Included in the list was a man who said he had a birth condition that “makes him resistant to coronavirus”, according to police.
He was nicked with another man, both not wearing masks, while buying cigarettes in South Melbourne after curfew. Other examples include:
- A man in the Brimbank area who was out after 8pm. When he was asked why he was out, he claimed he was researching where to buy cheaper groceries in the area.
- Eight people who don’t live together who were found in a one-bedroom apartment on Flinders Street in Melbourne CBD.
Over the past 24 hours there was 253 fines given out which include 40 for failure to wear a mask, 20 at vehicle checkpoints (presumably for people travelling without a permitted reason) and 75 for breaching the 8pm - 5am curfew.
'Desperate calls for staff:' Victoria takes over three nursing homes
By Jewel Topsfield
Three aged care centres taken over by the Victorian Government had been "desperately calling for additional staff" amid a rapidly deteriorating COVID-19 situation and as increasing numbers of employees went into isolation.
Leading Age Services Australia CEO Sean Rooney said the homes had wanted to transfer their first residents infected with COVID-19 immediately to hospital in order to reduce the risk of transmission to other residents and staff.
“In some cases, these transfers were arranged but were then refused by health authorities,” Mr Rooney said.
State government health services on Thursday took over the management of Glenlyn Aged Care Facility in Glenroy, Florence Aged Care Facility in Altona North and Kalyna Aged Care in Delahey, with Premier Daniel Andrews saying they were of "particular concern".
He said they were not the first nursing homes the state government had taken over.
Farmers caught in cross-border nightmare urge bureaucrats to cotton on
By Samantha Hutchinson
Malcolm Doolin is in a tight spot. It's six weeks until harvest but the farmer living in the border country in northern NSW is already on the back foot after a snap border closure by Queensland locked his entire community out of its closest regional centre, Goondwindi.
Farmer and irrigator Malcolm Doolin on his property near North Star. Credit:Grace Quast
Mr Doolin lives in North Star, a tiny farming community more than an hour from Moree, and just half an hour from the Queensland town of Goondiwindi. He owns a business in "Goondi" and, like most residents in the area, goes there for groceries and medical services. At this point in the year, he also relies on the regional hub for access to a slew of specialised workers, including mechanics, to keep his multi-million dollar equipment running and ready for harvest.
But with the border shut, the work can't get done. Mr Doolin knows that time to prepare for what is shaping up to be the best harvest in three years is getting away from him – and the rest of the community.
"We can't get any mechanics out of Goondi to fix our machinery," he said.
"I have a business there, I can't go in and see my staff, you've got contractors that have dozers out here that can't come in to drive them … it's as if they don't realise that we are completely oriented to Queensland."
Victorian outbreak hits recovery as RBA says rates steady for three years
By Shane Wright and Jennifer Duke
The Victorian coronavirus outbreak will set back Australia's economic recovery, Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe has warned, saying it is unlikely the economy will start growing until the final three months of the year.
Dr Lowe, giving evidence to the House of Representative's Economics Committee, has also revealed inflation is unlikely to get back to the RBA's target band of 2 to 3 per cent for at least three years, signalling no change in official interest rates for a similar period of time.
The government and RBA had, before the outbreak in Victoria, been expecting a lift in the September quarter after a deep fall in activity through the June quarter.
RBA governor Philip Lowe has told a parliament inquiry that the Victorian virus outbreak has set back the national economic recovery.Credit:AP
Dr Lowe said the June quarter was likely to show the economy shrinking by 7 per cent, the largest contraction in "many decades". The events in Victoria now meant it was unlikely the economy would recover sharply.
"We expect the (Victoria) outbreak will reduce GDP growth in the September quarter by at least 2 percentage points. This will broadly offset the recovery that has been taking place in most other parts of the country," he said.
"As a result, we are now not expecting a lift in economic growth until the December quarter."
Melbourne cancels spring fashion week
By Melissa Singer
Lord Mayor Sally Capp has finally confirmed that Melbourne Fashion Week will not be going ahead as planned in September.
"We’re reviewing our plans for the event and looking at other ways to support Melbourne’s fashion, design and retail sector later this year when have more clarity on restrictions," Cr Capp said.
A model wearing Forever New (centre) walks in a pop-up runway at Melbourne Fashion Week in September 2019.Credit:Getty Images
Organisers are looking at moving elements of the event online and staging physical events once it's safe to do so.
Melbourne Fashion Week's primary goal is to support fashion in the city centre which has been hit hard by coronavirus.
The City of Melbourne is offering relief grants for traders that have been most affected by the downturn in trade.
“We normally have up to a million people coming into the city each day," Cr Capp said.
Reports earlier this week showed pedestrian traffic in the CBD was down by 90 per cent on usual numbers.
Royal Melbourne Hospital confirms ward closures
By Rachael Dexter
A rehabilitation and aged care facility run by Victoria's Royal Melbourne Hospital has confirmed it has moved positive COVID-19 patients out of the facility to different wards.
In a statement released by the hospital this morning, a spokeswoman said the vulnerable patients have been moved to wards that are better suited to deal with COVID-19.
"To better support our COVID positive patients on the campus, we have transitioned these patients to two wards that will allow for better infection prevention measures," she said.
"These wards are more contemporary in their design and better suited for supporting patients during this pandemic."
The spokeswoman also confirmed that some elderly patients that had recovered from the virus had been moved back to their original residential facilities.
The campus has been a site of a major outbreak of the virus, with 123 cases of COVID-19 linked to the facility as of Wednesday.
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2020-08-14 01:25:00Z
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