Latest updates
Qld Premier leaves door open for early border decision
By Lydia Lynch
Sydneysiders might find out when they will be let back into Queensland as early as Tuesday after NSW health authorities confirmed the southern state had gone more than a month without an unlinked case of COVID-19.
The criteria to reopen Queensland's borders has been 28 days of no new COVID diagnoses which could not be traced to another known case.
NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant said the last unlinked case was on October 24, while Saturday will mark 28 days since a COVID case was diagnosed in Victoria.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said health data was being "conveyed" to Queensland's chief health officer from her interstate counterparts ahead of the monthly border review and she would provide an update on Tuesday.
Ms Palaszczuk had previously said the decision on borders would be made on November 30, but when asked if that could be brought forward given the streak of no cases in southern states, the Premier said "let's see".
"I will give you an update tomorrow," she said.
"I actually do think things are looking positive, the most positive I have seen this year, so, look, fingers crossed if it continues that way, our roadmap says December 1, I am very encouraged that it will be a positive outcome for NSW and Victoria."
Doherty chief awarded top gong, says pandemic has changed the way Victorians work
By Bianca Hall
The way Melburnians work will change permanently and for the better, Doherty Institute chief Sharon Lewin predicts.
"I suspect that COVID will change the way that we work, so, even when we're allowed to come back to work, I'm not sure everyone will come back to work in their offices as they've done before," she said.
Life will change, but for the better, says Professor Sharon Lewin.Credit:Simon Schluter
"I think we'll have a new work and way of working ... it will bring lots of advantages to many people, especially people that have long commutes and young families."
Professor Lewin has been one of the quiet achievers of Victoria's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, helping to bring the state to within a heartbeat of eliminating the virus.
As director of The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, a joint venture between the University of Melbourne and Royal Melbourne Hospital, it has been a year like no other for Professor Lewin.
Read more here.
What is this thing called flying? A love is rekindled at the airport
By Carolyn Webb
They drove for two hours from Point Lonsdale in the pouring rain, but nothing was going to stop Brenda and Paul Heseltine from meeting their daughter and two grandchildren for the first time in 18 months at Melbourne Airport on Monday.
At 7.25am, Alison Songsaeng, 43, her children Ailani, 6, and Patrick, 4, disembarked from QF 401, the first domestic Qantas flight from Sydney since the Victoria-NSW border reopened, and straight into the arms of Brenda and Paul.
Brenda and Paul Heseltine, daughter Alison and grandchildren Ailani and Patrick at Melbourne Airport.Credit:Simon Schluter
Ms Songsaeng said it cost her $15,000 to return to Melbourne from Koh Samui, Thailand, where she was working as a teacher.
COVID-19 restrictions had thwarted plans to fly home in June. It had been "incredibly hard" to find a flight: in Thailand they had to go into a lottery for tickets.
They had to quarantine for two weeks in a Sydney hotel, which had been difficult, with the kids becoming bored.
Mrs Heseltine said she had phoned or video-called her grandchildren every day, but nothing beat hugging them. "I’m very excited," she said.
Read more here.
Western Australia records five new cases of COVID-19
By Daile Cross
There have been five new cases of COVID-19 detected in Western Australia.
The girls and women aged between 14 and 59 had returned to Perth from overseas and are in hotel quarantine.
The state’s total number of cases is now 804 with WA Health monitoring 21 active cases.
Handing over
By Hanna Mills Turbet
And that's it for me today. It's been lovely to be back here, bringing you all the latest COVID-19 news.
Thankfully, that news is a little less all-consuming that it was several months ago but we will continue to run special editions of the blog to mark big days (and, like today, the wash-up from the big days!).
In Victoria, the state budget will be handed down tomorrow. My colleague Marissa Calligeros will be running a blog for all things state budget. That will obviously be much more exciting that it sounds 😉
And The Age's online team will look after you into this afternoon as Victoria's health authorities continue to answer questions at an inquiry into contact-tracing.
Enjoy your new freedoms, and stay safe!
Victoria's contact tracers overwhelmed as COVID-19 caseload topped 200, inquiry hears
By Melissa Cunningham
Victoria’s Chief Health Officer has told an inquiry probing the state’s contact-tracing capabilities the system began to get overwhelmed when the state hit 200 new coronavirus cases a day in late May.
"When you get to hundreds of cases, at that kind of level of 200 or more cases per day, it starts to really challenge your ability to get to all of that timely information for close contrasts … within that critical time period," Professor Brett Sutton told the inquiry.
"When you get to very, very high numbers it does degrade your ability to get on top of it."
Professor Brett Sutton is facing questions over the state's contact-tracing capabilities.Credit:Getty
Professor Sutton also told the parliamentary inquiry, which is probing the state’s contract tracing and the testing regime in Victoria and assessing how the health department responded to the pandemic, that the state experienced a rapid surge in community transmission in late May.
He attributed this spike largely to positive cases linked to the ill-fated hotel quarantine program.
"The driving force there was what looks like epidemiologically ... a super-spreader event that has popped up in a large number of households over very broad geographical areas," he said.
The inquiry earlier heard that about third of those infected were responsible for driving most of the spread of the virus.
"So even with the best contact tracing in the world, we were faced with individuals who had up to close 20 contacts each, either in the workplace or household or both," Professor Sutton said.
The Age has previously revealed that long delays hindered efforts to get on top of community transmission, with some Victorians waiting nearly two weeks for confirmation they could have been exposed to COVID-19.
In August, the Victorian Health Department quietly scrapped its paper COVID-19 notification system, replacing it with an electronic system that allows doctors to quickly submit positive test results.
Victoria’s newly appointed Department of Health and Human Services secretary Euan Wallace, who is also giving evidence, told the inquiry "deep community engagement and trust" was fundamental to effective contact tracing.
"It doesn't matter how good your system is and your interviewers are, unless you have the trust and engagement of the community ... the processes will not work," he told the inquiry.
Testing commander Jeroen Weimar, Chief Medical Officer Andrew Wilson and former deputy chief health officer Annaliese van Diemen will also give evidence to the inquiry this afternoon.
The inquiry, headed by Reason Party MP Fiona Patten, is investigating whether the contact-tracing system as it stands can handle future coronavirus outbreaks.
Truck drivers urged to get tested as Victoria's 'doughnut days' continue
By Hanna Mills Turbet
The latest figures from Victoria's health department have dropped.
As we know, there have been 24 consecutive days of no new coronavirus cases or deaths. There remains just one active case in the state, an immuno-compromised person in a metropolitan hospital with a long-term case of COVID-19.
The run of glorious zeros continue: the average number of cases diagnosed in the last 14 days (November 9-22) for metropolitan Melbourne and across regional Victoria is zero, while the total number of cases from an unknown source in the last 14 days (November 7-20) is also zero for both metropolitan Melbourne and regional Victoria.
A total of 3,504,873 test results have been conducted this year. There were just 7,261 test results returned yesterday, which is lower than normal but not unusual for a weekend.
After South Australia's recent outbreak, a permit is now required to enter Victoria from our western neighbours. Residents of the previously established 70km cross-border bubble between Victoria and South Australia can use existing permits.
Truck drivers who travel into and out of South Australia have been urged to get tested. Sites have been set up at Nhill, Dartmoor, Edenhope, Nelson and Murrayville.
Testing is also continuing around the Altona area after a positive wastewater sample was discovered late on Friday. A pop-up site has been established at Point Cook and residents from Altona, Altona Meadows, Laverton, Point Cook and Sanctuary Lakes with even the mildest of symptoms are being urged to get tested.
Anyone who visited Benalla or Portland between November 15-17 is also urged to get tested after positive sewage samples were found last week.
Testing site details are available here.
Leave quarantine hotels in cities, leading epidemiologist says
By Hanna Mills Turbet
There has been plenty of discussion in recent days over moving COVID-19 quarantine hotels to regional facilities to prevent an outbreak similar to the one that prompted Victoria's deadly second wave.
Associate Professor Philip Russo, the Australasian College for Infection Prevention and Control president and deputy chair of the federal government’s Infection Control Expert Group, told The Age and Sydney Morning Herald that moving infected people away from population centres "just makes logical sense".
However, Melbourne University epidemiologist Tony Blakely said it was probably too late to bother.
University of Melbourne epidemiologist Professor Tony Blakely.
"Certainly at the beginning of the pandemic, in March and April, myself and others were saying, 'Why aren't we opening up the old centres on the Mornington Peninsula and setting up quarantine in Ballarat and Bendigo?" he told Virginia Trioli on ABC Radio Melbourne this morning.
"Whether that would be cost-effective now is moot, because we are getting closer to the vaccine. So the amount of time that we would use the quarantine [hotels] is diminishing. It might be six months before the vaccine is starting to be rolled out in Australia and another 12 months before we have completed that rollout.
"So as long as the CBD quarantine can be done extremely well – and I think we are at the point where it is being done as well as it can with occasional blips – it may be best to leave it in the CBD.
Professor Blakely said Australians were learning how to live with the virus, and also how to stamp it out when required.
"I am confident that when and if the virus gets back, we will be able to knock it out of the way and have a reasonably normal life between now and when the vaccine gets here," he said.
Crowds up to 5000 expected at races within weeks: Pakula
By Damien Ractliffe
Moonee Valley will be encouraged to put forward an ambitious plan to host thousands of people at next year's All-Star Mile if COVID-19 restrictions continue to ease over summer and into the autumn.
Victorian Minister for Racing Martin Pakula says crowds are expected to return to racetracks within weeks, initially limited to 500, before a gradual move up to 5000 and hopefully back to some resemblance of normality by the time Melbourne's autumn carnival of racing kicks off.
Spectators packed into Moonee Valley for last year's Cox Plate. Martin Pakula has urged the club to put forward a plan for crowds at the All-Star Mile.Credit:Getty Images
Owners, limited to 30 per race and also with caps on the length of time they're allowed to remain on course, have been back on track in country Victoria for a few weeks now, but Mr Pakula said the gates would open to the general public and owners in metropolitan Melbourne once Racing Victoria, Country Racing Victoria and the three city clubs submitted their COVID-safe proposals.
"The fact that we've had some owners back on track and we're going to get crowds back on track in the next couple of weeks I think is just another step along the road that the economy is taking but it's another great advance for racing," Mr Pakula told RSN Radio on Monday morning.
"Under the public events framework, from now until early/mid-December would be up to 500, but we've indicated that will move every couple of weeks provided we maintain the current infection profile, so that's really promising.
"I think we'll see up to 5000 in a few weeks' time. But it might not take two weeks. It might be that a week from now, the first country meeting of next week, there might be crowds.
"But the way it will look will depend on the plan that's put forward by Country Racing Victoria or by the metropolitan clubs or the venue and that being signed off.
"By the time we get to the autumn, I think the All-Star Mile is at The Valley [next] year, I would hope The Valley submit a reasonably ambitious proposal for a few thousand people at MVRC and a very robust COVID-safety plan and [hopefully] that would be ticked off."
SA ‘quietly confident’ the worst is over, Premier dodges questions over lockdown
By Josh Dye
South Australia’s Chief Health Officer Nicola Spurrier expressed confidence the state has the Parafield COVID-19 cluster – now linked to 27 cases – under control.
"I'm feeling quietly confident that we have got on top of this now in South Australia," Professor Spurrier said.
"Technically we haven't had community transmission here, and I'm updating the other chief health officers with what’s going on in terms of our cluster investigation."
South Australia's Chief Public Health Officer Nicola Spurrier.Credit:Getty Images
SA Premier Steven Marshall dodged questions about whether the harsh lockdown was an overreaction based on one man's alleged lie that triggered the restrictions.
"We did not rely on just a single person's evidence," he said. "We acted very, very swiftly and decisively on the expert health advice, and by doing so we avoided a catastrophic situation for our state."
SA Police Commissioner Grant Stevens said he was aiming to lift restrictions further before December 1.
"We're all reasonably optimistic that Christmas will be celebrated as we would hope to celebrate it," he said.
Most Viewed in National
https://news.google.com/__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?oc=5
2020-11-23 03:30:00Z
52781200977412
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Coronavirus updates LIVE: NSW-Victoria border reopens as mandatory mask wearing in Victoria scrapped for outdoors - The Sydney Morning Herald"
Post a Comment