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Victoria still has shot at COVID zero, says expert, but NSW may not
By Roy Ward
Professor Brendan Crabb from the Burnet Institute says Victoria can still return to zero COVID-19 community transmission but Sydney may be too far into its outbreak.
Professor Crabb said Victoria has two options: stay in lockdown until the state returns to zero cases and have a higher quality of life later in the year, or start leaving lockdown with a high amount of virus in the community.
Professor Crabb, an infectious diseases expert, told ABC 774 on Thursday afternoon both options required the state to get to a high number of double-vaccinated people and Victoria should aim for zero cases.
“Victoria only has two options,” Professor Crabb told ABC 774.“One is to live in lockdown for a while with the hope of reaching zero community transmission again and therefore ... living a much freer life, almost a completely free internal [inside Victoria] life.
“So, living locked down with the hope of zero and openness, or leaving lockdown with lots of COVID [around]. They’re the only two choices.”
But he is concerned Sydney may have too many cases to return to zero.
“Unfortunately for the moment, Sydney is going down that second path,” Professor Crabb said.
“I’m very hopeful NSW can eliminate it from the regions but from Sydney, it will be incredibly tough, now they’re really living in lockdown until vaccination rates are high and even then, as the roadmap says, it’s an easing away from that.
“There’s no COVID zero life for NSW for the foreseeable future. Just less and less lockdown.
“But for us if we do get back to zero, then we will have a more open life like South Australia and Queensland and Tasmania and Western Australia have.
“So that’s why we’ve got to give it a go. We’ve kind of got no choice, but the beauty of it is with very low numbers, we still have a chance, you have a good chance and we shouldn’t let that opportunity go when the only alternative is locked down anyway.”
‘You are killing my constituents’: Labor MP lashes government over Afghan visas
By Michaela Whitbourn
Federal Labor MP Julian Hill was ejected from the chamber this afternoon by Speaker Tony Smith after he yelled “you are killing my constituents” when Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews rose to answer a question from government ranks about Afghanistan.
On the way out, Mr Hill, the member for the Victorian seat of Bruce, added:
There are thousands of Australians and their loved ones who are only in Afghanistan because you haven’t processed their visas for years and now you are leaving them to die.
The Speaker labelled his behaviour “completely unacceptable”, saying MPs who are asked to leave the chamber “must do so immediately without comment or abuse to anybody”.
Labor MP Julian Hill.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
In a statement this week, Mr Hill drew attention to the plight of Afghan Australians in his electorate, including an Australian citizen he called Razia.
“Razia is a citizen from my electorate. She’s lovely and kind. She and her husband fled the Taliban 14 years ago. Her sister and mother are alone in Kabul, unable to even leave the house now and get food,” he said.
“The Taliban are back, driving around their district looking for women. Razia’s mum and sister are only in Afghanistan as they’ve been waiting over four years for the Morrison government to process their visas.”
“Abdul is an Australian citizen from my electorate. He’s in Kabul with his pregnant wife and his two-year-old Australian child. He’s only in Afghanistan because he’s been waiting for three years for the Morrison government to process his wife’s visa. I shamed the government into granting his visa last week. Abdul then emailed me photos of his bruises, after he was beaten trying to get to the airport. They’ll keep trying.”
Modelling suggests vaccination targets do not need to include children: PM
By Michaela Whitbourn
You might recall that earlier today the West Australian Premier Mark McGowan raised questions about whether children aged 12 to 15 should be included in national vaccination targets that are tied to the staged easing of COVID-19 restrictions across the country.
ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr has also said his government will explicitly include this age group when making decisions about future restrictions.
The Doherty Institute’s modelling, which underpins the national plan, talks about vaccination targets of 70 and 80 per cent, which is a reference to people aged 16 and over.
“The Doherty Institute ... has made it very clear that they have not considered it necessary to include this [12-15] age group in overall vaccination targets, but it does not mean that they shouldn’t be vaccinated. Of course they should be vaccinated,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in Parliament today.
“The government will ensure they are vaccinated; I have two daughters aged 12 and 14 and I think it is very important they will be vaccinated. They will be. There are 1.2 million [children] between that age group of 12 and 15 who will need to be vaccinated in that cohort.”
As Rachel Clun reports, we’ll be hearing more about the plan to vaccinate children aged between 12 and 15 on Friday. Vulnerable children in that age group – First Nations children and those with underlying health conditions - are already being vaccinated.
A closer look at Victoria’s 80 COVID cases
By Mathew Dunckley
Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that the tally given by Victoria’s COVID-19 Commander Jeroen Weimar this morning added up to 78, not 80.
Victorian COVID-19 response commander Jeroen Weimar. Credit:Getty
We sought to clarify this and have received a new breakdown from the government.
There were:
- 13 mystery cases:
- 20 linked to Shepparton and the RMH (including 18 in Shepparton)
- 15 linked to MyCentre childcare
- 9 linked to the Hobsons Bay/Wyndham cluster of cases
- 4 linked to Newport Football Club
- 3 linked to CS Square Caroline Springs
- 2 linked to City of Port Phillip / St Kilda East
- 1 linked to Altona Gate Shopping Centre
- 1 linked to Brighton
- 1 linked to Brunswick East
- 1 linked to Glenroy
- 1 linked to Sunbury
- And 9 are household contacts of unlinked cases
Shepparton residents may be given lockdown reprieve
By Sumeyya Ilanbey and Roy Ward
Thousands of Shepparton residents may be allowed to exit their 14-day isolation early as the public health team considers downgrading some exposure sites from tier one to tier two.
About a third of people in the regional city have been forced into isolation, sidelining a significant chunk of the working population.
Suzanna Sheed, independent MP for Shepparton, is pleading with the Victorian government for more support. Credit:Jason South
Locals have been struggling to buy groceries and receive deliveries of essential supplies, after supermarkets were shut down to being exposure sites or losing staff in quarantine.
The Department of Health reviewed the exposure sites and testing results of the almost 20,000 people who are in isolation, and may determine several exposure sites could be downgraded, Goulburn Valley Health has confirmed.
Chief executive Matt Sharpe said more than 500 GV Health staff had also been furloughed.
Anyone who has been at a tier one site must get tested and isolate for 14 days, while those at a tier two site must get tested and isolate until they receive a negative result.
Shepparton MP Suzanna Sheed said she spoke to Premier Daniel Andrews on Wednesday evening about the community’s critical needs.
“Supermarkets and chemists are working on skeleton staff because a number of workers are in isolation - they simply cannot respond fast enough to the large influx of orders,” Ms Sheed said in a statement.
“Our community is grateful for the support of community members and community groups like GV Care who have been working hard to support isolating families, but capacity is stretched.”
The Shepparton community has been badly hit by the latest coronavirus outbreak, which grew to 67 cases on Thursday, after the virus swept through schools and infected young working families or forced them into 14-day isolation.
Meanwhile, the Bourchier Street Primary School in Shepparton has been added to the state government’s exposure sites list with four tier one entries.
Anyone who was as the school on August 17, 18, 19 and 20 at any time (12am to 11.59pm) needs to get a COVID test immediately and then quarantine for 14 days.
Four thousand people evacuated to Australia from Afghanistan
By Michaela Whitbourn
Defence Minister Peter Dutton has provided an update on Australia’s efforts to evacuate people from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and warned of “credible threats” of a terrorist attack around the airport in Kabul.
“We have evacuated approximately 4000 people in total now on 29 flights since last Wednesday; 1200 in the last 24 hours,” he said.
“So thank you very much to the RAAF and to the Air Force from New Zealand for their assistance and logistics on the ground, sharing intelligence.
“But this is a very difficult situation [and] we do have credible threats and intelligence in relation to planned terrorist attacks at the airport in that vicinity.
“There has been advice issued by the United States, the UK and Canada, New Zealand and ourselves, that people should not gather at the gates at the airport [in Kabul]; that they should move immediately from that area and that they should not be in areas of large gatherings.”
The Croods return to political discourse
By Katina Curtis
You may remember on Tuesday interest in 2013 animated film The Croods, about a Stone Age family, spiked after Prime Minister Scott Morrison mentioned it several times in relation to the national plan for reopening.
Many interpreted it as a swipe at the West Australian and Queensland governments and their reluctance to open up to states with COVID-19 outbreaks.
The DreamWorks film has entered the political lexicon.
Today in Question Time, Labor MP Milton Dick, member for the Queensland seat of Oxley, asked the following question:
Last year, the Prime Minister said that Australians need to come out from under the doona. Now he says to Queenslanders and West Australians we need to come out from our cave. If the Prime Minister had done his job on quarantine and vaccines, our country wouldn’t be in lockdown. Why doesn’t the Prime Minister stop ridiculing Queenslanders and West Australians and accept responsibility for the health and economic crisis that he helped create?
Mr Morrison defended his use of the film, saying he made no reference to Western Australians or Queenslanders.
“I was simply trying to make an explanation, to use an analogy from a children’s animated movie which I have enjoyed with my children on many occasions,” he told Parliament.
“It is a simple story that says at some point, as a nation … [we] have to be clear that we have to move on and live with this virus.
“The young female character in that movie; she decided she wanted to go and face the future, go out there and deal with the challenges in the world, and she brought her whole family with her. There was a sequel to that movie - and that says something, there is a lesson in that.”
Greater Sydney hit hardest by falling payroll figures
By Shane Wright
The number of people collecting a pay packet across NSW has crashed by more than 7 per cent since the start of lockdowns to bring the latest coronavirus outbreak to heel.
Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Thursday showed the number of people on business payrolls fell by 3.7 per cent in NSW in the fortnight to July 31.
Across the nation, there was a 2 per cent drop in payroll numbers.
The hardest-hit part of the nation has been Greater Sydney, with payroll numbers falling by almost 5 per cent in the second half of July. Since the lockdown started, payroll numbers in the region have tumbled by 9.2 per cent.
But all states and territories are being affected by both the NSW and Victorian lockdowns. The number of people on payrolls in Victoria and Queensland fell by 1.3 per cent in the fortnight to July 31 while they dropped by 2.7 per cent in South Australia.
They fell by 0.9 per cent in the ACT, by 0.6 per cent in Tasmania, by 0.2 per cent in Tasmania while they were flat in WA.
The bureau’s head of labour statistics, Bjorn Jarvis, said the figures coincided with the increasing of restrictions in NSW, including the pause in construction. It also took in lockdowns in Victoria and South Australia.
Mr Jarvis said hospitality, retail and construction jobs had borne the brunt of the drop in payroll numbers.
“Payroll job losses in the accommodation and food services, retail trade and construction industries accounted for 44.3 per cent of job losses across Australia in the second half of July, and 45.4 per cent in NSW,” he said.
Men in NSW have also had a larger fall in employment than women through the second half of July. But over the full lockdown period, women have suffered the biggest fall, down by 7.5 per cent compared to 6.6 per cent for women.
What does ‘living with COVID’ look like?
By Michaela Whitbourn
If you’re watching Question Time right now (and who among us isn’t?), you might have heard Prime Minister Scott Morrison say the following:
Australians can look forward with hope to the national plan that says at 70 and 80 per cent they will be able to live with the virus.
The plan is not about a Freedom Day. There is no special virtue in a calendar. This plan is based on vaccination rates and based on a staged, careful reopening in phase B and phase C at 70 and 80 per cent vaccination rates. This is a plan that accepts and acknowledges and understands that COVID Zero as a future plan is not sustainable and is not realistic, as other countries are beginning to also learn. It is a plan that is clear about the risks.
But what does “living with the virus” look like?
Prime Minister Scott Morrison.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
First, the 70 and 80 per cent targets refer to vaccinations of Australians aged over 16, although the government has also committed to vaccinating children aged between 12 and 15 (and there is an announcement on this slated for tomorrow). There is no vaccine approved for younger children.
Second, the Doherty Institute, whose modelling underpins this target, has made clear that “there is no ‘freedom day’.”
“We will need to keep some public health measures in place – test, trace, isolate and quarantine – to keep the reproduction number [of the virus] below 1, but as vaccination rates increase, we’ll be able to ease up further and it is unlikely that we will need generalised lockdowns,” the institute said in a statement this week.
“In the COVID-19 modelling, opening up at 70 per cent vaccine coverage of the adult population with partial public health measures, we predict 385,983 symptomatic cases and 1,457 deaths over six months. With optimal public health measures (and no lockdowns), this can be significantly reduced to 2,737 infections and 13 deaths.”
In a taste of what is to come, the NSW government has now announced new freedoms from September 13 for fully vaccinated adults, related to small outdoor gatherings. You can read about them here.
On Tuesday the state hit its target of 6 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine administered. Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the vaccination milestone equated to roughly 30 per cent of the population being fully vaccinated and 60 per cent with one dose.
Environmental watchdog ordered to address climate change in landmark ruling
By Peter Hannam and Miki Perkins
In a landmark ruling that has implications for other states, a NSW court has ordered the state’s environmental watchdog to take action to address climate change.
In a judgment on Thursday, Chief Judge of the Land & Environment Court Brian Preston ordered the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) “to develop environmental quality objectives, guidelines and policies to ensure environment protection from climate change”.
The order for the EPA to address climate change was welcomed by the Environmental Defenders Office, which had argued the case on behalf of the Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action following the record 2019-20 bushfires that scorched more than 5 million hectares in NSW alone.
The judgment hinged on the interpretation of the duties imposed on the agency under the Protection of the Environment Administration Act. The EPA, which regulates a range of sectors from forestry to pollution controls, had accepted climate change was a global problem but argued no local action by the agency alone could address the problem.
The EDO’s Ms Johnson said the court’s decision was the first in Australia to find that a government agency has a requirement to address climate change.
“It’s breaking new ground,” she said, adding that other states could face similar legal challenges.
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2021-08-26 06:27:53Z
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