Two years ago John Elliott was a businessman heading for burnout and dreaming of leading a team of camels across Australia’s deserts, from the east to west coast.
In little over a year, he learned how to handle camels, acquired five of them, and set off from a Queensland beach.
But a few weeks into the trip, he had an epiphany. He observed that seeing the camels, with their laid-back gait, humps and stately expressions, made other people happy.
Expeditioner John Elliott (right) with his camel train and dog Bruski in Lakes Entrance catches up with camel trainer Russell Osborne.Credit:Rachel Mounsey
So he "turned left", heading south down Australia’s more populated eastern side, leading camels Ted, Jackson, Arthur, Bill, and Charlie through communities from Narrabri to Tallangatta to Mansfield.
For vulnerable residents living in aged care facilities everywhere life under lockdown has been lonely, frightening and dull.
But for the residents of one Sydney retirement village, that monotony was broken in spectacular fashion on Friday with a private concert from one of Australia’s best-loved opera stars.
Star soprano Jane Ede serenades the residents of Alan Walker Village.Credit:Louise Kennerley
Under a light drizzle, 20 of the retirees living at Alan Walker Village in Carlingford looked on from their balconies and patios as Opera Australia principal soprano Jane Ede presented a selection of some of the greatest arias in the repertoire, including Musetta’s Waltz from La Boheme and the Vilya aria from The Merry Widow.
The quirky concert - “up there” with some of the more unusual she has done, according to Ede - was the idea of Amy Saunders, granddaughter of resident Paul Shelton.
In the heart of central Jakarta, about 20 minutes from Joko Widodo's Presidential Palace, the Pramuka Bird Market is open for business.
The aisles throng with people, few wearing masks, and hum with the din of humans, birds, reptiles and mammals all mixed together. It stinks too.
A live lizard is displayed for sale in a cage at the Satria market in Bali, Indonesia.Credit:Amilia Rosa
Today, Vonis, a local trader who uses just the one name, is holding forth about the origins of the coronavirus that has infected nearly 6 million people, killed more than 360,000, up-ended the global economy and more.
It is thought to have passed from bats, via an unidentified animal, to humans at a wet market in Wuhan, China.
"It's hoax. It is not true that bats caused COVID-19. I've been selling this [bats] for many years, nobody gets sick here. No one. Also, many Indonesians eat bat meat and nobody is sick. I myself healed my asthma after consuming bat. It happened when I was around 25 years old. I'm a bit over 40, I am healthy now," he says.
Queenslanders will be able to travel anywhere within the state from noon on Monday, in a major easing of coronavirus travel restrictions designed to help the ailing tourism sector.
But the state borders remain closed amid ongoing acrimony at a state and federal level.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk on Sunday announced the government had brought forward stage two easings of restrictions from the federal road map to recovery because the state's confirmed virus cases stayed low after earlier measures.
“From [Monday] lunchtime, Queenslanders can travel anywhere in Queensland and that means you can stay overnight,” the Premier said.
Children identified as close contacts of the students who tested positive to COVID-19 last week have been told they need to be tested as well as isolate for 14 days before returning to school.
But those who simply shared a campus with the infected students do not need to get tested unless they developed symptoms, with infection control specialists advising parents that the risk of infection between children was very low.
Students leave Moriah War Memorial College after a COVID-19 case is detected.Credit:Louise Kennerley
The sources of infection are unknown for each of the three cases that have caused temporary school shutdowns over the past fortnight at St Ignatius, Riverview, in Hunters Hill, Moriah College in Queens Park and Waverley College in Waverley.
Some parents drove their children straight to the pop-up testing clinic in Bondi.
The NRL will meet the NSW government this week armed with the threat of moving the grand final away from Sydney if the state doesn't deliver up to four boutique suburban stadiums over the next decade.
With the state government on Saturday dumping plans for the $800 million redevelopment of ANZ Stadium as it deals with the financial fallout of the COVID-19 crisis, NRL powerbrokers are set to demand funds be redirected towards suburban venues as part of a push to regenerate tribalism in rugby league.
The 30,000-seat Bankwest Stadium in Parramatta cost around $300 million to build.Credit:Getty
The NRL recently signed an extension to keep the grand final in Sydney until 2042, but that agreement hinged on a $2 billion promise that included new stadiums at Parramatta and Moore Park, as well as the redevelopment of the former Olympic venue into a rectangular facility.
According to sources with knowledge of the NRL's stadia strategy, the governing body is delighted with the decision by NSW government to scrap ANZ Stadium refurbishment plans, and will now lobby for up to four 15,000-20,000 seat stadiums worth around $150m-$200m each.
The NRL understands the government's predicament given the toll of the coronavirus crisis, and is expected to extend the time frame if it agrees to roll out a suburban venue plan that will cater for communities and sporting clubs across many codes.
The Australian sharemarket is tipped stumble to into a new week as investors gauge whether the easing of lockdowns - and the promise of accelerated retail spending - will fend off concerns a COVID rally has gone too hard, too fast.
The SPI futures contract is pointing to a fall of 24 points or 0.4 per cent when the ASX opens on Monday, having sagged into the weekend against a familiar backdrop of geopolitical tension. The index slipped sharply at Friday’s close after profit takers cashed in on a remarkably strong week as relations between Beijing and Washington again threatened to boil over.
The market is posed for a soft open on Monday.Credit:Louie Douvis
Global equities were already jittery ahead of US President Donald Trump’s address on Chinese security laws for Hong Kong and Wall Street closed lower amid the heightened volatility.
Tribeca Investment Partners portfolio manager Jun Bei Liu said this tense undercurrent is one of the few factors that could prevent the ASX from continuing its COVID rally on Monday.
She said optimism around the next step of NSW lockdowns easing on June 1 will herald a consumer spending surge, and further stoke sharemarket confidence.
Western Australia has reported three new active cases of COVID-19 overnight bringing the state’s total to 589.
Of the new cases, one is a three-year-old child from WA and another a female in her 60s, both from WA.
The third case is a male in his 30s from interstate.
The trio recently returned to WA from overseas as travellers and are currently in hotel quarantine.
The child is a known contact of a confirmed case.One person, a known case from the Al Kuwait who had been in hotel quarantine, was admitted to a Royal Perth hospital ward overnight.
There are 28 active cases in WA, three of which are Western Australian, five from interstate and 20 from overseas.
To date, 552 people have recovered from the virus in WA.
On Saturday, 524 people went to COVID-19 clinics in WA, with 501 assessed and 498 swabbed after assessment.
About 800 asymptomatic people were also tested on Saturday through the state's DETECT Snapshot program.
To date there have been 91,530 COVID-19 tests performed in WA.
Of those tested, 15,754 were from regional WA.
Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Nick Coatsworth says the nation’s suppression tactics will not turn towards testing for asymptomatic people.
Dr Coatsworth gave the daily COVID-19 update on Sunday stating Australia now has 7195 cases with 6614 recoveries, 103 deaths and now only three people in intensive care and just one on a ventilator.
6.13 million have downloaded the COVIDsafe phone app.
Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Nick Coatsworth.Credit:LUKAS COCH
Dr Coatsworth explained that for authorities to test for more asymptomatic carriers didn’t give enough ‘bang for their buck’ as opposed to encouraging people to seek tests when they felt the symptoms like a sore throat, runny nose and a cough.
“As we move into a phase where we have been for several weeks where the number of new cases are often in single digits over a 24-hour period, it's tempting to think that we should be broadening our testing to a whole load of people out there who don't have any symptoms at all,” Dr Coatsworth said.
“Now, we are aware that COVID-19 can be carried by someone who doesn't have any symptoms of a cough or a cold. We are aware that on occasion it's been demonstrated that people can transmit COVID-19 even without symptoms.
"We think that asymptomatic transmission or transmitting when you don't have symptoms is a less likely pathway of transmission than if you do have symptoms.
“But more importantly if you consider at the moment that well over 24 million Australians probably don't have any symptoms of a cough, cold, runny nose or a sore throat, there will be a much smaller proportion of Australians at this very point in time who do have those symptoms.
“In terms of bang for your buck, where you're most likely to get a positive test, it's amongst those Australians who have symptoms over a cough, a cold, a sore throat, a runny nose.
"You might wake up on Monday or Tuesday morning with any of those symptoms and think "I better not go to work". If you do that, then the next step is to look on your State Health Department website, establish where you can get a COVID-19 test and go get tested.”
Dr Coatsworth said asymptomatic people could still be tested but when there was a reason to suspect they could be carrying COVID-19.
“Do we test people without any symptoms? Yes, we do. But in very targeted ways, in ways that are directed by our public health unit.” he said.
“For example, in the outbreaks you've seen in Victoria, in the cases you've recently seen in Queensland, the public health authorities there will have tested people who have minimal or no symptoms in that very localised geographic area.
“But that sort of approach of testing asymptomatic people needs to be driven by those public health units in response to outbreaks.
“This is part of what we, we're calling in the Australian National Disease Surveillance Plan, the suppression response strategy.”
Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Nick Coatsworth believes the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a surge in attempts to quit smoking.
Dr Coatsworth referenced smoking during his COVID-19 update on Sunday to coincide with it being World Tobacco Day and he revealed the Department of Health has seen a 300 per cent increase in downloads of its My Quit Buddy phone app which supports people in their attempts to quit.
“We know that if you are a smoker and you contract COVID-19, you are at greater risk of that disease being more severe, having more severe COVID-19 disease and progressing towards things like intensive care,” Dr Coatsworth said.
“Smoking itself does not appear to increase the risk of getting COVID-19 however, but that important element that if you are a smoker and you do get it, severe disease is more likely. And the great news is that Australians who are smokers have cottoned on to this.
“They've seen it in the media and seen us saying it, and there have been a 300 per cent increase in the downloads of the Australian Department of Health My Quit Buddy app, suggesting there is a very large number of Australians out there who smoke tobacco products, who are trying to quit as we speak.”
Dr Coatsworth added he understood the difficulty faced by those who quit smoking but it was important for smokers to attempt considering 16 different cancers were connected to tobacco products.
“I have told or asked a lot of people in my time to quit smoking and I know how hard that is,” Dr Coatsworth said.
“What a big step that is for people but such an important step at this time and taking I guess advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to give you that extra impetus, that extra bit of will power that's so difficult when one is quitting smoking is search an important step.
“I want to congratulate any Australian who has decided to quit this year. We have a lot of apps and products to support you.
"We have Quitline and all your family and friend should be supporting you to do that very difficult but ultimately so rewarding task of quitting smoking.”
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMifmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnRoZWFnZS5jb20uYXUvbmF0aW9uYWwvdmljdG9yaWEvY29yb25hdmlydXMtdXBkYXRlcy1saXZlLXdvcmxkd2lkZS1pbmZlY3Rpb25zLW5lYXJzLTYtbWlsbGlvbi0yMDIwMDUzMS1wNTR5MHEuaHRtbNIBAA?oc=5
2020-05-31 07:51:00Z
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