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Has your school formal been cancelled?
After the decision to cancel all formals in NSW state schools, we are looking to speak to students from across the country about missing out on the rite of passage.
Did you already have your dress? Is a Zoom replacement being organised? If you'd like to share your story, email melissa.singer@smh.com.au today.
Graph that tells story of Victoria's second wave
By Chip Le Grand
The graph embedded below tells the story of Victoria’s COVID-19 disaster. It plots the genomic sequencing done by the Doherty Institute, on behalf of Victoria’s Department of Health and Human Services, to trace the origin of each cluster or outbreak in the State.
It explains why, since late May, nearly every COVID case can be traced back to a handful of infections at two quarantine hotels in Melbourne. At a glance it looks confusing, but bear with me.
To understand the graph, go first to the axis at the bottom. This is a timeline from late February, when Victoria’s first wave of infections began in earnest, through to early August.
Now note the coloured dots. Each dot represents an infection. Orange dots are returned travellers who brought the virus home with them. The black dots are people who picked up the virus in Victoria.
The cases in the bottom half of the graph are all first wave infections. In heartbreaking evidence to the Coate inquiry, Doherty Institute genomics expert Professor Ben Howden said that, as of late May, nearly all these cases had petered out.
We were almost through this thing.If you keep scrolling up, you come to a cluster of cases Labelled Transmission 1.
This is the Cedar Meats cluster, all acquired locally, which was spread by abattoir workers in Melbourne’s west. As you can see, it was contained by late May.
Now go to Transmission 2. This is where the problems started. This is the start of Victoria's second wave.
This a cluster which began in the Rydes Hotel on Swanston, the first quarantine hotel to report an outbreak of COVID-19 among its staff and security guards.
See those four orange dots in mid to late May? That is the virus breaking out of quarantine.
The mass of black dots that follow are what happened once this virus started running through the community in our north and western suburbs.
Transmission 3 is the Stamford Plaza Hotel cluster.
It begins with a single orange dot. If you look above Transmission 3 you see a cluster marked 45A. This is a separate cluster but also began at the Stamford Hotel.
Dr Charles Alpren, a DHHS epidemiologist and contract tracer, is expected to explain all this today in his evidence before the Coate inquiry.
But as the inquiry continues and hears evidence about everything that went wrong in our hotel quarantine program, remember this graph.
Melbourne public housing tenants come forward for Ombudsman investigation into hard lockdown
By Rachel Eddie
Public housing tenants who were stuck in their homes in a two-week "hard lockdown" have told the Victorian Ombudsman they were not properly communicated with from the outset.
Ombudsman Deborah Glass last month launched an investigation after 480 tenants were confined to their homes at 33 Alfred Street in North Melbourne. Police were deployed to stop residents leaving their homes for any reason.
The public housing tower at 33 Alfred Street in North Melbourne under lockdown last month.Credit:Joe Armao
The investigation has now received 89 complaints and 55 submissions from affected residents, volunteers, community advocates and organisations.
“We are hearing very strong concerns about the lack of access people had to information, as well as to fresh air, exercise and medical supplies,” Ms Glass said on Tuesday.
“Even with Melbourne in stage four lockdown, generally most people still have access to essential supplies, fresh air and exercise.”
Ms Glass said people felt ongoing distress about the severe lockdown.
“It is important that we document and understand what happened and learn lessons from what occurred, so that in the future the human rights of public housing tenants are recognised as much as everyone else’s.”
At eight other housing towers in North Melbourne and Flemington, thousands of residents were not allowed to leave home for five days while tenants were tested for COVID-19. No cases were found at two of the towers on Pampas and Melrose streets.
The Ombudsman is using a human rights framework to look at how and why the lockdown happened, the consequences for Alfred Street residents, and how the lockdown was managed.
The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) is providing records to investigators, who are also meeting with senior DHHS officials weekly.
The Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission has seconded a senior officer to help the investigation.
Submissions are open until next Friday.
People can make submissions by emailing investigation@ombudsman.vic.gov.au, calling 03 9613 6222 (10am to 4pm on weekdays) or calling via an interpreter on 131 450.
Victorian hotel quarantine inquiry to restart at 10am
The Victorian inquiry into hotel quarantine is starting up again today at 10am. You can watch the action live below, and catch up on yesterday's events here. Tammy Mills will be bringing you rolling updates in the blog.
Epidemiologist expected stage four would bring larger case declines
By Rachael Dexter
Victoria’s daily coronavirus numbers aren’t coming down fast enough for at least one Melbourne epidemiologist.
Professorial fellow of Epidemiology at the University of Melbourne, Professor Tony Blakely, told radio station 3AW this morning that he was surprised the daily new case numbers hadn’t dropped much further considering the implementation of stage four lockdown in Melbourne.
“Two weeks to a week ago, it came down quite quickly [and] I was very pleased with that. [But] In the last week they’ve come down not so fast and I was surprised by that because I thought they would really truck on down in the last week because it was 10 days or so after the lockdown was put in place,” he said.
“So we’re going down, it’s not as fast as I would like which concerns me a little bit.
“We’ll wait and see but if these numbers don’t start going down more rapidly in percentage terms each day the chance of us getting less than say 50 cases per day on average by the end of this six week lockdown is looking tough.”
Professor Blakely said it was too early to say if the rate of the virus spread meant stage four might have to be extended.
He said Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton had indicated the goal was suppression, not elimination, in driving down the second wave – and that based on that the state would need to get below 50 cases per day.
“If we go for suppression, if we look at somewhere like South Korea as an example they’ve managed somewhere around the 40 mark per day and they manage to keep it there most of the time although they are having a bit of an outbreak at the moment,” he said.
“So we would want to be probably less than 50 per day before we opened up again.”
Professor Blakely also said widespread mask wearing was a no-brainer until a vaccine is available.
“It doesn't have any economic costs on industries. It could mean the difference between pubs having 20 people versus 50 people, or the difference between workplaces being closed or being open for three days a week.”
Another day without a case in Queensland
By Lydia Lynch
Queensland has detected no new cases of COVID-19 again on Tuesday.
Speaking at a new stockpile warehouse storing 120 million pieces of personal protective equipment, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said seven COVID-19 cases remained active across the state.
“This is excellent news, we always love these zero days,” she said.
“This storage site will feed into our distribution centre, where collectively we will have in excess of 100 days of supply of key PPE items including more than 900 days of surgical masks, more than 200 days of surgical gowns and close to 300 days of gloves.”
Graphs show Victoria's daily cases on the decline
Craig Butt has updated his graphs tracking Victoria's daily case totals and the state's death toll.
Victoria recorded 222 new coronavirus cases today. You can see on the graph that the last time we were dealing with that low a figure was almost exactly a month ago, when 217 cases were recorded on July 18.
The state also saw 17 new deaths today, after recording 25 deaths – the highest daily number of the pandemic – on Monday.
WATCH: Queensland Premier gives a coronavirus update
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is giving her daily coronavirus update at 9.30am.
Tensions rise over superannuation changes
By Rachael Dexter
Tensions continue to rise today over whether changes to superannuation should go ahead in light of the economic fallout from COVID-19.
Compulsory super contributions are scheduled to gradually rise from 9.5 per cent to 12 per cent in 2025, starting from next year.But yesterday, the Assistant Minister for Superannuation Jane Hume said she was “ambivalent” about the changes, and said that workers may get no pay rises over the next five years as a result of the legislated changes.
It comes after a growing number of backbench Coalition MPs have been urging the Morrison government to delay next year's 0.5 per cent increase amid concerns it will hurt the nation's economic recovery from the coronavirus recession.
The Reserve Bank and the Grattan Institute are among several groups who say increasing the rate to 12 per cent will come at the expense of wage growth when the economy is struggling. Industry superannuation funds, Labor and unions argue the benefits of higher contributions outweigh any immediate pressure on wages.
Ms Hume has told ABC Radio Melbourne’s Morning program today that although there were “no plans to change” the rollout of the super changes, she said the Prime Minister was “listening to concerns” about it.
Greg Combet, Chair of Industry Super Australia, said it “certainly looks” the government was laying the groundwork to scrap the planned changes.
“If that’s where they’re going if they should come out and say it,” he told ABC Radio National’s Breakfast program.
Mr Combet said he believed the push to scrap the increases were being pushed by “agitators” on the backbench of the liberal party who “don’t actually support the super system at all”.
“It’s not really an argument about whether these rises go ahead or not, they would like to do away with the system.”
The government would require support from the cross bench to stall the changes, but Ms Hume said she hadn’t approached any independent MPs yet to discuss the issue.
Mr Combet said if the government were to get the changes stalled in the lower house, there would be a “fair old free for all in the senate”.
“Yes times are tough in the context of COVID-19 and I’m certainly extremely appreciative of that but we shouldn’t run away from building enormously important national institutions in the form of our superannuation saving system,” he said.
Mr Combet said throughout the pandemic, 620,000 individuals had cleared their super accounts down to zero, about 506,000 were people under 35 and less than 15 per cent of those were visa holders.
Locked-down Queensland aged care facility awaits test results
By Toby Crockford
A Sunshine Coast aged care centre has partially closed as it awaits COVID-19 test results for three residents displaying "respiratory symptoms".
Immanuel Gardens Retirement Living and Aged Care Centre in Buderim has closed The Terrace section of its accommodation to all visitors and the three residents in question have been isolated.
Immanuel Gardens Retirement Living and Aged Care Centre in Buderim.Credit:Lutheran Services
"This morning three residents who live in The Terrace at our Immanuel Gardens service in Buderim were experiencing respiratory symptoms," a spokeswoman for centre manager Lutheran Services said on Monday.
"The residents have been tested for COVID-19 and we anticipate we will receive the results in the next 48 hours."
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2020-08-18 00:06:00Z
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