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Victoria’s Chief Health Officer has given a very tempered response to today’s federal announcement of a vaccine deal with researchers in the UK.
Professor Brett Sutton said the vaccine in question was currently being trialled in large populations in areas where there is a lot of transmission.
“So it’ll show itself if it works, and if it does work and it’s 80-90 per cent protective and that protection lasts for some months then it will absolutely be a game-changer, and if it can be produced in Australia at scale then we should all be delighted at the prospect,” he said.
“But there are preliminary stages for phase three, [for which] the results won’t be through for some months and it might be 20 per cent effective, or that effectiveness may not be as long-lasting.
“And so we shouldn’t hang our hats on a single vaccine, we need to look at all the vaccines that are out there at the moment and hope that there’s one out there that makes a difference”.
As soon as Jaimie Harrigan saw the outfit, she knew it was The One.
"The second I saw it, I was in love with it," she says of the two-piece purple outfit with a one-of-a-kind graffiti design, upcycled from a vintage find by a friend of a friend. "I was really excited to wear it."
Year 12 student Jaimie Harrigan in the outfit she was planning to wear to her school formal, which has been cancelled under a government directive.Credit:Louise Kennerley
Like many senior students across the country, Jaimie, who attends Bradfield Senior College in Sydney's lower north shore, is coming to terms with missing out on one of the greatest final-year traditions – the year 12 formal.
But on Monday, the NSW government declared that as a COVID-19 precaution, school formals would be banned for the rest of term three, and graduation ceremonies would be restricted to students only. Although the directive is for government schools, including Jaimie's, many private schools are expected to follow suit.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has responded to Counsel Assisting the Royal Commission Peter Rozen QC's declaration that the federal government had no specific plan to respond to COVID-19 in aged care.
"Of course, there was a plan. A plan that had been refreshed. And there is no complacency on the government's part," he told reporters on Wednesday.
"It is not the time to get into an ideological debate about aged care. It is about what the residents need and how government can better support the needs of our elderly residents."
The Prime Minister said the challenges facing the sector had changed over the past decade, as older Australians increasingly entered aged care with "acute needs", increasing the level of clinical support required.
"When people are going into aged care facilities now – and I know this from personal experience – families are making a decision about pre-palliative care. That wasn't the case 10 years ago ... And that goes to the sort of staffing that's required. And it goes to the models that are put in place for how facilities can operate both in the non-profit sector, the private sector, the public sector."
Australia’s deaths from coronavirus include people who may not have specifically died from the virus itself.
Victoria’s Chief Health Officer has explained the practice, which is a standard set by the Commonwealth National Surveillance Committee and consistent across the country. “Anyone who’s a confirmed case who dies is classified amongst the deaths, so it doesn’t have to be definitely from coronavirus,” he said. “In some instances, you know in aged care, there would have been some residents who were already receiving palliative care who became infected with coronavirus”.
Victoria's Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton has said the public health team is close to launching a new type of contact tracing data that includes locations where infected people have visited, as is standard practice in NSW.
“I think we’re at a point when we can do that," he said.
Victorian Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton during Wednesday's press conference.Credit:Simon Schluter
Professor Sutton said cases were low enough to be able to start doing that type of reporting, but said final checks were being done to make sure it was sustainable. “We need to be sure we can keep it live, make sure it’s updated on a daily basis and make sure that it’s absolutely correct and contemporary data."
The CHO said while the location-specific data on shops where infected people may have visited shouldn't change the behaviour of people in Melbourne, it may be more effective in regional areas with lower numbers. “I think it might have particular relevance for rural and regional Victoria or some other places were maybe people have gotten complacent about the fact that they haven’t seen a confirmed case if there’s a prompt that makes people reflect on the fact that they’re symptomatic and get tested”
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has rejected the suggestion he is happy to "own the successes" of the pandemic, such as the Oxford vaccine deal, but not the failures highlighted by the Aged Care Royal Commission, saying: "I think that's an unkind assessment."
He said state and federal responsibilities for aged care necessarily overlapped "when have you a community outbreak like we've had in Victoria".
Prime Minister Scott Morrison in Sydney today.Credit:Nick Moir
"It is a complex set of responsibilities and they are shared and that's why we're working together."
The Prime Minister said Australian Defence Force and AUSMAT teams had now visited 61 Victorian aged care centres to "shore up" their "state of readiness and preparedness", including PPE training, with all of the state's residential facilities expected to be audited by the end of the month.
"It's a challenging environment and there's a mixture of issues in each and every facility and they have to be treated on a case-by-case basis," he said.
"The situation that has been explained to me ... is increasingly stabilised but still fragile, in particularly a handful of facilities."
Of the more than 340 aged care facilities in Melbourne, Mr Morrison said, "we've got less than half a dozen on our acute watch list".
About 750 Victorian aged care residents had been transferred to hospitals, mostly in the private sector, he said.
"Staffing issues continue to be a daily challenge," Mr Morrison said, with ADF and AUSMAT teams being deployed to those facilities with shortages.
"In many cases, that's meant a takeover of the management of the facilities based on the advice of the aged care regulator."
Work was underway to tackle issues such as the management of contaminated waste, he said, with new incinerators set up to help dispose of the "large volume of PPE material being used in Victoria".
Back to the Victorian press conference, which has just ended.
Premier Daniel Andrews has dug in on his position that ADF personnel were not offered specifically for the state’s hotel quarantine.
Yesterday, the commander of the Defence response to the pandemic has confirmed an ADF offer to make troops available to strengthen Victoria's hotel quarantine scheme was not taken up by the Andrews government.
Today Mr Andrews said Lieutenant-General John Frewen’s evidence did not dispute his own, and Victorian Emergency Manager Andrew Crisp’s, version of events. “The word offer is the key,” Mr Andrews said. “He’s confirmed that there were troops stood up, no one’s ever questioned that.
“If you look at the ADF commentary yesterday in the senate I don’t that that’s in anyway inconsistent with what Andrew Crisp has said, and nothing I have said is inconsistent with the Emergency Management Commissioner's comments.”
Last week at a Victorian parliamentary inquiry, Mr Andrews told the hearing that it was "fundamentally incorrect to assert that there were hundreds of ADF staff on offer and somehow, someone said no".
On the day of Mr Andrews’ appearance before the parliamentary committee, Mr Crisp said: "Representatives of the ADF participated in the Operation Soteria planning and co-ordination meetings on 27 and 28 March 2020. During these discussions, I did not seek nor did representatives of the ADF offer assistance as part of the hotel quarantine program."
“Have a look at Andrew Crisp’s statement, have a look at my statement and they’re in no way inconsistent,” Mr Andrews said today.
The John Hopkins University tally has just ticked over to 22 million coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic.
Of these, 5.4 million are in the US, 3.4 million are in Brazil, 2.7 million are in India, 930,000 are in Russia and 592,000 are in South Africa.
The global death toll has hit 779,000.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has indicated the government may override the automatic indexation of age pensions to give people a top up. Inflation going backwards in June means pensions and most other indexed welfare payments won’t increase automatically in September as people would have expected.
The Prime Minister said the confirmation that was the case only came through late on Tuesday and he and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg are now examining the issue.
“It was not intended and nor will it be the case that you'll see those payments reduce. We'll work out the exact response and the circumstances and we'll announce that when a decision has been made,” he said.
Pensioners received special $750 payments in April and June as part of the government’s coronavirus support package. The next automatic indexation of the pension isn’t until March 2021.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said once a COVID-19 vaccine had been approved for use in Australia, the government would "seek its most widespread application" and he had been advised a 95 per cent vaccination rate would be necessary.
The Prime Minister, who was the minister responsible for the 'no jab, no play' rule introduced in childcare centres five years ago, said he would encourage Australians to "do the responsible thing for the sake of community health".
Prime Minister Scott Morrison toured the AstraZeneca laboratories in Macquarie Park on Wednesday.Credit:Nick Moir
Asked what measures would be taken to deal with vaccine refusers, he said: "I don't think offering jelly beans will be the way to do that, as you do with kids... We'll take those issues as they present and consider what steps are necessary at that time."
It was important for the wider population to be vaccinated so that those who could not be receive the jab for medical reasons would be protected, he said.
The vaccine roll-out would be based on clinical advice about any vulnerabilities in communities, he said, with healthcare workers and the elderly "obvious" priorities for who would likely be first in line.
Asked what the government's "Plan B" was if no successful vaccine was found, Mr Morrison said Australia would "continue to live positively with the virus, to ensure that we can establish our economy and society as much as is normally possible" under the "COVID-safe" approach to life.
"That's why having testing, tracing and outbreak capacity capabilities are so critical," he said.
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2020-08-19 02:24:00Z
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