Watch live: Victorian Premier fronts parliamentary inquiry
Premier Daniel Andrews is speaking at a public accounts and estimates committee where he is being quizzed about his government's response to the coronavirus pandemic. You can watch his evidence live, below.
If your live stream is buffering, or cutting in and out, you're not alone. The load on this live stream is large, but if you're patient it should start running smoothly.
Victoria has recorded 19 deaths for the second consecutive day and 331 new coronavirus cases.
Latest updates
Global cases pass 20 million
A new figure has just come in, marking a grim milestone in this global pandemic. The worldwide tally of confirmed coronavirus cases has passed 20 million, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The US accounts for more than a quarter of the world’s total cases, with 5 million confirmed cases, followed by Brazil (3 million) and India (2.2 million).
The number of global deaths stands at more than 733,000, with about 163,000 in the US, 101,700 in Brazil, 52,000 in Mexico and 46,600 in the UK.
More than 12.2 million people have recovered from the virus.
You can explore our data centre (below) for the latest figures across the globe:
'We're not pursing elimination': Andrews
By Sumeyya Ilanbey
Victoria is not pursuing an elimination strategy despite its hard lockdowns, Premier Daniel Andrews says.
If you're just joining us, Mr Andrews is being grilled about his government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic by fellow MPs at a parliamentary accounts and estimates committee this morning.
Liberal Democrat MP David Limbrick asked about alternative ways to suppress the virus without having stage four restrictions in Melbourne that limit residents' movements to a 5-kilometre radius from their homes, and one hour of outdoor exercise a day.
Premier Daniel Andrews speaking at today's PEAC hearing.
Without a hard lockdown, Victoria’s hospital system would be "completely overwhelmed" right now, Mr Andrews said.
"It’s not just COVID patients who will wait for a machine, it’s the hundreds each day who need time-critical [care] because of heart attacks, motor accidents," he said.
"The acute critical care, trauma part of our hospitals is a very busy place COVID, or no COVID. There's great hardship and burden … and if we allow this to run completely wild, there’s also a big cost in all of those that we can’t care for."
Victorian MP David Limbrick.
Mr Limbrick asked what the endpoint was.
"The endpoint is to get case numbers to a low case number so that we can manage those cases and inevitable outbreaks," the Premier said.
Mr Andrews reiterated that Victoria was following a suppression strategy, as agreed by national cabinet earlier this year.
"We're not pursuing a strategy where we eliminate this virus."
Watch live: WA Premier to announce shed transformation
Western Australia Premier Mark McGowan is due to speak shortly in Perth, where he will be joined by representatives from Gage Roads Brewing Co, a craft brewery located just outside the city of Fremantle, in Palmyra. He's expected to announce a new project for Fremantle's Victoria Quay - a shed that will reportedly be transformed into a brewery, restaurant and bar. We expect there might be a few questions about COVID-19 too, so we're bringing that to you live.
Solution nearly reached for 100 stranded Canberrans in Victoria
By Mary Ward
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has said authorities are working to provide 100 Canberrans stranded in Victoria with a pathway back to the ACT after they were previously denied entry into NSW to drive home.
However, the Premier said she "can't apologise for putting safety first in NSW", although she understood the situation was inconvenient.
"I appreciate people have exceptional circumstances but I also appreciate that some others have had a long time to make these decisions," she said.
The Premier said the operation, which has not yet been finalised or confirmed, would have to not just involve the group being escorted for their journey but also being monitored.
"It's not just about the escort, it's about making sure that wherever they stop is done in a way that is safe and keeps residents safe because we know it only takes one person to be infected to unintentionally spread it to others and then you have a brand new cluster," she said.
Victorian Premier says ADF was not available for hotel quarantine security
By Sumeyya Ilanbey
Premier Daniel Andrews says the Australian Defence Force was not available to help run Victoria's hotel quarantine program, despite reports to the contrary.
Why the Andrews government did not put police or the ADF in charge of the crucial quarantine program has been a contentious question since outbreaks among security guards at hotels have been identified as the likely source of Victoria's second wave of COVID-19.
Security guards at the Stamford Plaza in the Melbourne CBD have been linked to Victoria's second coronavirus outbreak.Credit:Getty Images
Mr Andrews has told today's public accounts and estimates committee in Melbourne that the ADF was not on offer to provide hotel security.
"I think it is fundamentally incorrect to assert that there was hundreds of ADF staff on offer and somehow someone said no. That's not, in my judgement, accurate," he said.
NSW records 22 new cases, eight linked to school
By Mary Ward
NSW has recorded 22 new cases in the latest 24-hour reporting period, with eight new cases linked to a growing Sydney school cluster, Premier Gladys Berejiklian has announced.
Tangara School for Girls, at Cherrybrook in Sydney's north-west, is emerging as a coronavirus hotspot in the city.
Tangara School for Girls in Cherrybrook is closed due to COVID-19 infections.Credit:Edwina Pickles
The independent K-12 school, which is run by the Opus Dei-established Parents for Education Foundation, is known for having a number of larger families enrolled.
Yesterday, there were a total of nine cases connected to the school. Today's eight cases brings that number to 17, Health Minister Brad Hazzard confirmed.
Four of the 22 cases were returned travellers in hotel quarantine, two of which are from Victoria.
More details will be available when NSW Health provide their case update at 11am.
Ms Berejiklian said she expected the Tangara cluster would grow as household contacts were susceptible to the virus. She repeated her statements yesterday that non-government schools should not be conducting out-of-school activities as they may have if we were not in a pandemic.
The Premier added that coronavirus containment would be a "daily battle in NSW", encouraging people to come forward for testing after 13,000 tests were recorded in the latest reporting period, a drop in previous days' rates.
Andrews deflects key question on hotel quarantine
By Sumeyya Ilanbey
This parliamentary committee makes for great listening. If you're not already tuned in, you can watch the Victorian hearing in the post above.
We have finally gotten to the question on everyone's lips: Who made the decision to use private security guards in hotel quarantine and why was that decision made?
That question came from Nationals MP Danny O'Brien.
Security guards who contracted COVID-19 from returned travellers at the Rydges on Swanston hotel have been linked to Victoria's second wave of the virus.Credit:Penny Stephens
Premier Daniel Andrews responded by saying that on March 27, national cabinet decided to quarantine returned travellers in hotels.
"The exact nature of security arrangements, their adequacy or otherwise, that is appropriately a matter for [former judge Jennifer Coate] to look at [during her inquiry]," Mr Andrews said.
Mr O'Brien pressed the Premier on why the decision was made to use private security guards, to which Mr Andrews responded that security guards were used in other hotel quarantine programs in other states.
"This was just an extension of that program," Mr Andrews said.
As he has done during his daily press conferences in previous weeks, Mr Andrews deferred further questions about the hotel quarantine program to the inquiry headed by Justice Coate, which is due to hold its first public hearings on August 17.
A frustrated Mr O’Brien raised his voice, asking why the Premier has consistently refused to answer questions on hotel quarantine over the past month.
'Thank god': No new cases in QLD today
By Lydia Lynch
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has breathed a sigh of relief after no new cases of COVID-19 were detected in Queensland overnight following 6500 tests.
Two teenage girls who allegedly lied about a trip to Sydney have both returned a negative result. It has been 10 days since a case of community transmission was detected in the state.
Ms Palaszczuk said today marked 203 days since Queensland’s first case of COVID-19.
"Recently we learnt just how much we value our days without new cases," she said referring to a recent scare linked to two women who returned from Melbourne infected with the virus and spent eight days in the community while they were unwell.
"We had a three-month streak of no community transfer until the selfishness of a few undid the hard work of the many ... anxiety crept back in to Queensland.
"But, thank god, the people of Queensland especially those in Logan, Springfield and Ipswich, responded exactly as a united community should."
Watch live: NSW Premier provides a COVID-19 update
Premier Gladys Berejiklian, Health Minister Brad Hazzard and parliamentary secretary for the Central Coast Adam Crouch are marking a milestone in the $200 million Wyong Hospital redevelopment. They are also expected to provide a COVID-19 update.
'Ultimate vulnerability not whether someone got fed in five hours': Andrews on tower lockdowns
By Sumeyya Ilanbey
Victorian Greens MP Sam Hibbins is also on the public accounts and estimates committee, which is questioning Premier Daniel Andrews this morning.
He pursued a line of questioning about the hard lockdown of Melbourne's public housing towers, noting that some residents waited days for food to be delivered, while a mother could not access clean syringes for her diabetic child and another mother was separated from her premature baby in hospital.
A decision to lock down the public housing towers in North Melbourne and Flemington and was confirmed in the three hours before the announcement was made, Mr Andrews said.
Police tape outside the public housing tower on Alfred Street when it was locked down in July.Credit:Getty Images
Mr Andrews said he acknowledged not every element of the response was perfect, but there was no manual to responding to a pandemic of this scale.
"The ultimate vulnerability here was not whether someone got fed in five hours, or waited until the next day to get groceries," he said.
"The ultimate vulnerability here is for this virus to get into the towers and infecting everyone."
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2020-08-11 00:37:00Z
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