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Summary
- The global death toll from coronavirus has passed 205,000. There are more than 2.9 million known cases of infection but more than 861,000 people have recovered, according to the Johns Hopkins University tally
- UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson will return to work this week and is reportedly "raring to go" after stepping back from duties while receiving coronavirus treatment
- More than 1.1 million Australians have downloaded the COVIDSafe app since its launch last night. There have been 6714 confirmed coronavirus cases in Australia and around 1000 are still active
- Western Australia and Queensland have announced plans to ease their coronavirus restrictions. From today, Western Australians will be allowed to gather in groups of ten
- New York State, the UK, Spain, France and Italy all posted their lowest daily death tolls of the month
US garage hobbyists fight pandemic with 3D printers
Hobbyists are increasingly stepping in where governments have fallen tragically short in the US, with tinkerers and techies across the country running 3D printers around the clock, Bloomberg reports.
In basements, workshops, bedrooms and garages, the web is filled with pictures of individuals churning out personal protective equipment desperately needed by medical professionals on the front lines of a public health catastrophe.
High school junior, Will Olsen, of Kensington, Maryland, places bags holding pieces for medical face shields that were printed using personal 3D printers, into his car.Credit:AP
Relaxing restrictions a 'glimmer of hope' for economy: Costello
By Jennifer Duke
Future Fund chairman Peter Costello said there was a “glimmer of hope” for the Australian economy as states consider relaxing the coronavirus restrictions, as the sovereign wealth fund posts a 3.4 per cent decline for the March quarter.
At the end of January the virus was “mainly a Chinese problem” with markets continuing to rise to record highs, Mr Costello said during a teleconference update on the portfolio on Monday morning, adding the threat to investor markets was treated with scepticism in the press earlier in the year.
Future Fund chairman Peter Costello said there was a “glimmer of hope” for the Australian economy as states consider relaxing the coronavirus restrictions.Credit:Janie Barrett
“We’ve been warning for some time about risks to markets and have been preparing for it, selling down a number of illiquid exposures and that proved to be a wise decision given what happened in March,” Mr Costello said.
Over the year, the fund was down 0.2 per cent.
“Looking forward of course the most important thing to try and anticipate is when restrictions that have been put in place in response to COVID-19 will start to be lifted and when the Australian and indeed global economy can start to recover,” Mr Costello said.
“The medical situation is the priority but the sooner Australia can get back to work the better it will be for employees, for businesses, for families and ultimately for investor markets."
However, he warned the recovery would not be quick and the downturn had been significant.
“This has been an enormous hit to the Australian economy and indeed to a global economy,” he said. “It will take some time to come out of it I think. There are some businesses that will not re-emerge on the other side of the downturn.”
Mr Costello was federal treasurer from 1996 to 2007 and is currently chairman of Nine, the owner of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
“In a period of volatility and falls frankly to contain the return to negative 3.4 per cent for the quarter should be received as quite an achievement and is a testament to the preparations the fund has been making to limit exposure to falls of this nature and to diversify its risk.”
Victoria records just one new case
Victoria has recorded just one new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, Premier Daniel Andrews has confirmed.
Two other cases reported by federal Health Minister Greg Hunt earlier this morning have now been added to NSW's tally, Mr Andrews said.
It is unclear whether this means the two cases NSW reported this morning should have actually been four – we have asked NSW Health and will update this blog post when we know.
One of the two new NSW cases this morning was linked to a known COVID-19 case and the other is a returned traveller in hotel quarantine.
Addressing media this morning, Mr Andrews announced a plan to test 100,000 Victorians for coronavirus over the next two weeks.
"With that data, with those test results, we will have options, to ease some of the restrictions that I know are frustrating, challenging and difficult, but that restrictions that are working," he said. These numbers and their stability should be a point of pride for every single Victorian."
with Melissa Cunningham
LIVE: Victorian Premier coronavirus update
Wealthy more likely to cut back on charity, spending
By Matt Wade
People in Sydney’s north shore and eastern suburbs have cut spending far more than in other parts of the city since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic while those in some less well-off districts are purchasing more.
Giving to charity has also fallen sharply in the wealthy suburbs but increased in lower income areas.
Shoppers in Willoughby council area have slashed overall spending by 40 per cent during the past month, more than any other Sydney council area, according to a real-time spending tracker developed by analytics firm AlphaBeta, which is part of Accenture, and the credit bureau illion.
Only 10 new cases across Australia as second wave becomes focus
By Nicole Precel
Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt has said there has been an increase of 10 cases in the last 24 hours in Australia.
The NSW and Queensland premiers have already held press conferences this morning announcing two and three new cases in their respective states.
Mr Hunt said three of the other five cases were in Victoria.
"Now we’ve had 16 days of less than one per cent growth a day … what this means is we are not in a position of the United Kingdom, the US, Spain or Italy. As a country I think the rest of the world would want to be where we are," Mr Hunt told 3AW this morning.
"Each state is pursuing what they need to do in relation to their case numbers. We’ve had very low case numbers in Queensland and Western Australia; 11 cases in Queensland over seven days, in WA they’ve had four cases, but in contrast Victoria has had 21. All of those are low numbers which is good. Those states have been able to take cautious early steps off-the-back of low transmission numbers."
There have been 510,000 tests done across Australia.
"What we want to do is protect against a second wave," he said.
"We know that children are less likely to be given the disease, but they can certainly contract the disease. The medical advice is that it is safe for schools to go back. One is safety of students and their parents ... each state and territory is understandably wanting to make sure conditions of teachers are safe."
COVIDSafe offers 'strongest data protection Australia has ever had': Hunt
By Nicole Precel
Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt has told 3AW the COVIDSafe app has the "strongest data protection both physically and in law that Australia has ever had" and that information couldn't even be accessed for a criminal investigation via a court order.
The design of the contact tracing app would be released in 14 days to ensure privacy experts were satisfied it was hack-proof.
The app was designed by the government's digital transformation agency in conjunction with leading Australian design firm Shine.
"The data has to be in Australia, has to stay in Australia. There's a five year jail term to anyone who breaches that security," Mr Hunt said.
Users provide their name, phone number, their age range and postcode and need to be within 1.5 metres of each other for the bluetooth digital handshake.
"Every Australian has a birth certificate, it's the simplest set of information imaginable," he said.
"What this does is it simply allows public health officials to contact you and protect you if you have been exposed to the virus."
Three new cases in Queensland, state introduces spitting fines
By Toby Crockford
There have been three new coronavirus cases in Queensland overnight, as the state introduces new fines for spitting.
Anyone who deliberately coughs, sneezes or spits on frontline emergency workers or any essential worker faces an on-the-spot $1300 fine or a penalty of up to $13,000 if the matter goes to court.
The crackdown has been announced as a new health directive by the state government on Monday, with Queensland Health Minister Steven Miles saying the state is relying upon these essential workers.
The new rule aims to protect emergency services personnel, health workers and other essential workers such as shop assistants.
"They should never feel threatened at work. They should certainly never be threatened with being deliberately infected with COVID-19," Mr Miles said.
"During a pandemic, a cough can be used as a weapon, a sneeze can be as dangerous as a knife and spitting is of course always disgusting.
"We have had cases of hospital staff, nurses, being threatened with being coughed upon in fever clinics, we've had paramedics experience the same kind of threatening behaviour, and I was disturbed to hear last week ... how shop assistants are threatened just doing their jobs."
Teachers Federation still wants Year 12s on campus first
The president of the NSW Teachers Federation has welcomed the results of a study which found no child had infected a teacher with COVID-10 in NSW.
However he noted, as the researchers had, results would have been affected by the drop in students attending school on site.
President Angelo Gavrielatos said the union would still like to see kindergarten and Year 12 students start back at school first when children across the state return to classrooms from May 11.
"What we proposed to the Government, regrettably it was ignored, was there should be an orderly staggered return, starting with Year 12 and kindergarten and in our primary years," Mr Gavrielatos said on ABC television this morning.
"And thereafter, as confidence grows, as it is safe to do so, add Year 6 and 7 and continue to pad out the schools accordingly."
At present the plan is for all state school students to return to classrooms one day a week at first, with small class sizes allowing for social distancing.
Mr Gavrielatos said the system could allow for independent school students to have an educational advantage, particularly among HSC students.
"The problem we have with the government's announcement is that Year 12 students in government schools, given their announcement, could have as few as eight face to face days of preparation, whilst their counterparts in private schools could have as many as 49 days face to face preparation," he said. "That is a profound inequity."
Neighbours first scripted TV show to return to production
By Karl Quinn
A shell-shocked TV industry has begun to take its first tentative steps back to recovery, with Neighbours resuming production on Monday after a four-week shutdown, while the ABC has announced a $5 million development fund to ensure the sector is production ready when things return to some semblance of normality.
Fremantle Media Australia is adopting social distancing principles as it reboots Neighbours, which is the first mainstream scripted show to resume production.
Neighbours resumes production on April 27, with new social-distancing measures in place on screen and off.Credit:Fremantle Media
The production company will be running daily temperature checks for everyone on site and limiting the number of cast in any one scene.
At this stage, the thinking is to not include coronavirus in the storylines. "We are currently plotting episodes that won’t air until much later in the year, so anything we write now might feel very outdated," executive producer Jason Herbison said.
"Further to this, there’s a creative question: will our viewers want to switch on Neighbours and relive it again, or is our job to provide escapism? I tend to feel it’s the latter."
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2020-04-27 01:17:00Z
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