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'We can't stay stuck in neutral': PM urges Queensland, WA reopening
By Mary Ward
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has urged Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to reopen to all of NSW when she makes a statement about the state border today.
Queensland has previously said it would wait for 28 days of no coronavirus community transmission before allowing NSW residents outside of its "border zone" to enter the state.
However, the Queensland Premier has said she will be making an announcement about the border today.
Asked about what he wanted to see from the announcement, the Prime Minister told Ben Fordham on 2GB he wanted Ms Palaszczuk to "make decisions on the basis of health advice and be transparent about it".
"It's just very often hard to get a steer on what's behind these decisions," he said of states who had kept hard borders.
With the Queensland announcement as well as a meeting of Western Australian state disaster council set to discuss its own border closure today, Mr Morrison said he "welcomed" the reopening of state borders.
"The testing and tracing systems – that's what enables Australia to go forward, we've looked at the Queensland systems and the Queensland systems are good," he said, adding: "We can't stay stuck in neutral."
Mr Morrison did not comment specifically on the closed border between NSW and Victoria.
Mental health impacts of lockdown examined
The mental health impact of the coronavirus and lockdowns is undeniable. There is some quality reporting on this issue this morning including the findings of an Ipsos poll, commissioned by The Age and Nine News, that found COVID-19 had disproportionately affected young people’s mental health, with three-quarters of those aged 18 to 24 saying it had been impacted.
This decreased with age: 65 per cent of those aged 25-39 said the pandemic and lockdown had impacted on their mental health, 49 per cent of those aged 40-54, and 35 per cent of those aged 55 and over.
Second year uni student Max Hayward says the lockdown has had an impact on his mental wellbeing.Credit:Jason South
The author of that story Jewel Topsfield spoke with Max Hayward, a 22-year-old university student, was supposed to be on exchange in the US this semester. Instead, he found himself stuck in his room in a Melbourne residential college.
“I’m studying agricultural science and a big part of my education is being out in the field and on farms. It’s been really tough to replace that with just Zooms all the time. This year has basically been a write-off for me – it feels in a big way like I have lost my purpose.
“I wouldn’t say I became depressed but I started spending a lot more time in bed. Although I am connected with friends online, I started withdrawing from them, not calling them as much, not messaging them as much and turning the camera off for Zooms.”
You can read the full story here.
Is the rest of the world getting further away
Professor Michael Toole, an epidemiologist at the Burnet Institute, has written a good opinion piece for us this morning.
He looks at the wildly contrasting performances of different countries, and how they got to where they are, to ponder whether we will be able to travel overseas any time soon.
Here's a taste of what he has to say:
For Australia, the lesson of what’s happening in Europe - and of Victoria’s second wave - is that we are just one bad decision, one slice of bad luck, away from a new COVID-19 bushfire.
We must not be complacent or self-congratulatory. Leadership, science and unity got us and our Asia-Pacific neighbours to this place. And it’s these things that stand between a "zero COVID" life and the devastation of a new wave.
A one-way travel bubble is in place with New Zealand and that could be cautiously extended two-way to other Pacific and Asian countries with low transmission like Vanuatu, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and Hong Kong.
Until there is an effective and widely adopted vaccine, or highly effective prophylactic and/or therapeutic drugs to be used most likely with point-of-care diagnostic tests, we probably can’t count on travel beyond the Asia-Pacific region.
Until there is an effective and widely adopted vaccine, or highly effective prophylactic and/or therapeutic drugs to be used most likely with point-of-care diagnostic tests, we probably can’t count on travel beyond the Asia-Pacific region.
There is hope on the vaccine front, given the massive scientific and financial investment. However, even if an effective vaccine becomes available in the short term, there are major logistical challenges to its distribution widely and equitably.
For example, the Pfizer candidate vaccine needs to be stored at minus 80 degrees and requires two doses. Even in a resource-rich country like Australia, that will pose huge challenges. It may prove to be a major impediment in many low- and middle-income countries.
You can read the full piece here.
Follow our US election coverage live
The American election is less than a week away.
We are running live coverage of the campaign every day in the lead up and will be blogging throughout the wee hours on election day.
My colleage Roy Ward (who many people that follow this blog would know) is helming our live coverage today.
You can check it out over here.
Queensland flags hospitality, border trade-off
By Matt Dennien and Lydia Lynch
Queensland's hospitality sector has been told not to expect a further reprieve on restrictions ahead of a long-awaited decision, set for Friday, for the next steps towards reopening of the New South Wales bubble.
A decision on a full reopening to NSW was flagged in an update roadmap in earlier October, provided the state had been free of so-called mystery COVID-19 cases for 28 days, after the border closed for a second time two months earlier.
Deputy Premier and Health Minister Steven Miles campaigning.Credit:Lydia Lynch
The October announcement also featured a winding back of restrictions on gathering sizes, seating requirements in venues and dancing at venues.
Asked whether more could be on the cards, Deputy Premier Stephen Miles said they had already been "substantially eased".
"There is a trade off between border restrictions and domestic, local restrictions," Mr Miles said. "At this stage, there's no intention to ease those any further.
"Our hospitality sector is running as close to normal as anywhere else in the world, in fact better than anywhere else in the world, and that is because we don't currently have cases.
"If we were to rush to allow more people to come in, that would create a risk of cases and if we didn't have some restrictions in place – social distancing restrictions in place – the risk of those cases turning into major outbreaks is much greater."
Berejiklian pushes QR app downloads
By Alexandra Smith and Tom Rabe
NSW is aggressively pursuing the expansion of its digital contact tracing tool, with Premier Gladys Berejiklian warning that Victoria's slow take-up of QR code technology would delay the opening of the border.
The NSW government's Service NSW app – which works with the government-developed QR code – is being used by more than half a million people, but the government is determined to reach 3 million people, or two-thirds of all adults in the state, by the time JobKeeper expires at the end of March.
Despite companies including Bunnings, Officeworks and hospitality giant Merivale using the government's QR code, as well as many private versions, NSW has not ruled out mandating its use.
As Victoria scrambles to develop its own QR check-in code to help health authorities contact trace COVID-19 cases, Ms Berejiklian said she would not ease border restrictions for at least two weeks.
Ms Berejiklian said she was not willing to gamble NSW and the nation’s economy by opening the border with Victoria before the Andrews government proves it can operate without a lockdown.
"I don’t want to see the border up a day longer than it needs to be, but we also need to be sensible, we need to see Victoria demonstrate they have the capacity to get on top of any outbreaks, because there will be," Ms Berejiklian said.
Read the full article here
'Wrong direction': Fauci sounds warning
Washington: The White House coronavirus taskforce is warning of a persistent and broad spread of COVID-19 in the western half of the United States and its members have urged aggressive mitigation measures to curb infections.
The area includes a number of battleground states that will play an important role in Tuesday's US presidential election as Republican President Donald Trump seeks a second term against Democratic challenger Joe Biden.
"We are on a very difficult trajectory. We're going in the wrong direction," said Dr Anthony Fauci, taskforce member and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Fauci noted that coronavirus cases are rising in 47 states and patients are overwhelming hospitals across the country.
"If things do not change, if they continue on the course we're on, there's gonna be a whole lot of pain in this country with regard to additional cases and hospitalisations, and deaths," Fauci said in an interview with CNBC.
Read the full story here.
Reuters
Europe, US torn between lockdowns and economic harm
The resurgence of coronavirus cases engulfing the United States and Europe is imperiling economic recoveries on both sides of the Atlantic as millions of individuals and businesses face the prospect of having to hunker down once again.
In France, President Emmanuel Macron has declared a nationwide lockdown starting on Friday. And in Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced a four-week shutdown of bars, restaurants and theatres. Merkel warned of a “difficult winter” as Germany's daily reported coronavirus cases hit a new high on Thursday.
“People prefer to sit outside,” he said ruefully. “We do everything possible, my colleagues do everything possible, too, to ensure that our guests come home healthy.”
In Spain, some regions have closed bars and restaurants. But the government hasn’t provided subsidies to aid the proprietors, triggering protests in Barcelona this week by business owners who banged pots, waved cocktail shakers and chanted, “We want to work!”
A major uncertainty is whether most people will abide by government directives or whether the resistance to lockdowns and other restrictions that have emerged in parts of the United States and Europe will slow progress in controlling the pandemic.
Read the full story here
Business groups push members to comply with rules
There was an interesting intervention from industry in Victoria last night as Melburnians get to grips with their new freedoms.
We had a lot of reader feedback through yesterday expressing concern that newly-opened businesses and their customers were not following rules around social distancing and contact tracing that are supposed to govern reopening.
In response, the Victorian Chamber of Commerce (VCC) warned businesses they must follow the "non-negotiable" rules.
"Our call is to every business owner to take COVID-safe plans seriously and put them in place," VCC chief executive Paul Guerra.
"Because if they continue to exploit the rules, not only would they be outed on social media, they can expect their customers to drop, and worse they can expect relevant authorities to [enforce the rules].
"No one wants to envisage a third wave, and the only way we can protect against that, is businesses and everyday Victorians doing the right thing."
Restaurant and Catering Industry Association chief executive Wes Lambert said it was "super important" that businesses implemented their COVID-safe plans.
"We call upon the owners and the industry to ensure they are following COVID-safe guidelines so that the industry can stand out as the most COVID-safe, can stand out as a leader in keeping case numbers down, and ensuring there is not a third wave," Mr Lambert said.
Read the full story here.
Emails reveal disagreements on Victoria's hotel quarantine
By Richard Baker
More than a dozen key internal emails from Victoria's jobs department relating to hotel quarantine have been completely blacked out after the department made a claim to the Board of Inquiry that communications about the appointment of Sydney-based security firm Unified should be redacted.
However, the evidence that is available suggests the department's senior officials disagreed strongly over the decision to use Unified, which ended up with the bulk of the security work, including at the Rydges on Swanston, the source of the biggest outbreak of COVID-19.
The redacted emails reveal the disagreement was because Unified was not on the department's preferred list of tenderers. However, some of the public servants in charge of the program wanted to hire them anyway partly because they "employ loads of Jobs Victoria clients, so it's actually serving a broader purpose”. Jobs Victoria acts as an employment agency finding work for the unemployed.
Inquiry board chair Jennifer Coate on Thursday announced the due date for her findings had been extended to December 21 after her team sought further information and answers from key government figures, including Premier Daniel Andrews and Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton.
Read the full story here.
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2020-10-29 20:35:00Z
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