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Queensland bans travellers from all of NSW, ACT
By Matt Dennien
Queensland has declared all of NSW and the Australian Capital Territory a hotspot in light of the unfolding situation in the southern states, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has confirmed.
She said the decision had come as a result of health advice from Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young, and would take effect from 1am on Saturday.
“We’ve seen that Victoria is not getting better and we’re not going to wait for NSW to get worse,” she told reporters. “We cannot risk a second wave, we have to act decisively.”
The ACT has had no active cases since July 31. NSW recorded 12 new coronavirus cases yesterday.
The decision will mean all visitors from NSW and the ACT, barring limited exempt categories such as freight and border residents, will be denied entry.
Returning residents will be forced to undergo 14 days in hotel quarantine at their own expense.
Victoria's debt set to hit $60 billion
In case you missed the report from Noel Towell, Michael Fowler and Sumeyya Illanbey on the front page of The Age today: independent modelling is now showing Victoria's state debt could hit $60 billion.
The modelling comes as a state parliamentary report revealed that the collapse in visitor numbers to Victoria was set to cost the economy more than $23 billion this year – even before the stricter lockdown was announced this week.
RMIT economist David Hayward’s modelling suggests the budget deficit could be more than $10 billion this financial year, after Premier Daniel Andrews announced the forced closures of thousands of Victorian businesses from Wednesday night, a move expected to lead to 250,000 workers being stood down or sent home.
Treasurer Tim Pallas' office said Treasury was still assessing the effects of the new phase of the pandemic on the state’s economy and finances and could not yet provide official estimates of the stricter lockdown's costs.
WATCH: Queensland Premier gives a coronavirus update
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk will give a coronavirus update at 9am.
Vaccine trialled in Australia has positive early results
Novavax Inc's experimental COVID-19 vaccine has produced high levels of antibodies against the novel coronavirus, according to initial data from a small, early-stage clinical trial, sending the company's shares up 10 per cent.
The company said it could start a large pivotal Phase III trial as soon as late September, and on a conference call added that it could produce one billion to two billion doses of the vaccine in 2021.
Melbourne's Dr Paul Griffin was part of the local team running the COVID-19 clinical trial for Novavax.Credit:Justin McManus
Portions of the Phase I and II trials of the Novavax coronavirus vaccine were conducted by the Nucleus Network in Melbourne and Brisbane.
Novavax research chief Gregory Glenn told Reuters the late-stage clinical trial could potentially glean enough data to obtain regulatory approvals as early as December.
US-based Novavax said its vaccine candidate, NVX-CoV2373, produced higher levels of the antibodies in healthy volunteers after two doses than those found in recovered COVID-19 patients, raising hopes for its eventual success. The addition of the company's Matrix-M adjuvant, a substance designed to boost the body's immune response, did enhance the effect of the vaccine in the study, the company said.
Novavax’s vaccine contains synthesised pieces of the surface protein that the coronavirus uses to invade human cells, spurring production of antibodies to fight the infection.
The trial, which started in late May, tested the vaccine in 106 subjects aged 18 to 59 versus a placebo. The Phase I study looked at the vaccine's safety and ability to induce immune responses.
It tested 5 microgram and 25 microgram doses of the vaccine, with and without the adjuvant. The company said it would likely move forward with the lower dose.
Eight study participants experienced adverse side effects after receiving a second vaccine dose during the trial, although none required medical intervention, the company said.
Headache, fatigue, and muscle pain were among the more common side effects, and the vaccine was "well tolerated" overall, the company said.
The Novavax vaccine is among the first of a handful of programs singled out for US funding under Operation Warp Speed, the White House program to accelerate access to vaccines and treatments that can fight the virus. The US government in July agreed to pay Novavax $1.6 billion to help cover costs related to testing and manufacturing the vaccine, with the aim of procuring 100 million doses by January 2021.
Reuters
Melbourne arrivals in Sydney should wear mask, stage four should be 'very successful': DCMO
Deputy Chief Medical Officer Michael Kidd has said all travellers from Melbourne into Sydney Airport should wear a mask for the duration of their travel.
"Those people should be wearing a mask, they should be going straight home and straight into isolation," Professor Kidd told ABC News Breakfast this morning.
Asked if hotel quarantine for returned Melbourne travellers should be considered, Professor Kidd agreed with NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian that this is currently an unnecessary step.
"I think as long as people do go into isolation in their homes an they stay there, as long as we have the measures in place to be able to follow-up and make sure that people are all adhering to the restrictions, then we don't need to be putting people into supervised hotel quarantine," he said.
Earlier this morning, Premier Berejiklian said she had received a request from NSW Police to look into whether masks should be compulsory for returning travellers, although the majority of people are currently wearing one.
Speaking on the situation in Victoria, Professor Kidd said he expected Melbourne's stage four lockdown would be "very successful", urging Victorians to remember it would take a couple of weeks for any new rules to take effect in the transmission numbers.
"We have to remember that the figures we're seeing today reflect infections that occurred a week or two ago, so it may be a week or two before we start to see the number of infections start to fall," he said.
South-west Sydney preschool closed after case
A preschool in Sydney's south-west has closed today after a child who attended the centre tested positive for coronavirus.
Kids Learning Academy at Busby was closed for cleaning late yesterday. It has remained closed today.
It comes after two schools in the area were allowed to reopen today after three other children tested positive.
Greenway Park Public School and Bonnyrigg High School are welcoming students back to on-site learning after cleaning and contact tracing was completed.
Attacked Victorian police officer recovering from concussion
By Rachael Dexter
A 26-year-old female constable who was allegedly viciously attacked in Melbourne’s south-east by a woman who was approached for not wearing a mask is recovering from concussion.
Chief Commissioner Shane Patton described on Tuesday a scuffle outside Frankston’s Bayside shopping centre in which a 38-year-old woman smashed the policewoman’s head several times onto the concrete ground.
Speaking to ABC TV’s Breakfast program this morning, Chief Commissioner Patton said he had personally spoken to the police officer yesterday after what he called the “disgusting” attack.
“She's at home on a couple of days off,” he said.
“She had a concussion, had her hair pulled out. But alarmingly was subjected to an attack that escalated from nothing.
“She's in as good spirits as you would expect her to be, but nonetheless taken aback by the unprovoked attack on her.”
The maskless woman, who has no criminal history, was restrained and taken to the police station where she was charged with nine offences, including two counts of assaulting an emergency worker and recklessly causing injury.
She was also fined $200 for breaching coronavirus restrictions by not wearing a face mask or covering. She was released on bail and will face court in March next year.
Chief Commissioner Patton said he believed new massive fines of up to $5000 dollars announced yesterday will create more vigilance in the community against those who are breaking Chief Health Officer directives.
“We're seeing a big shift in the community where they're shunning people who are deliberately committing breaches,” he said.
Rebuffing concerns from some quarters that higher fines might not be effective, the Chief Commissioner said the fines were a “significant deterrence”.
“The community are identifying the standards they expect and want. But certainly the increase in fines, I think that will make a specific deterrence and a general deterrence right across the community and that is why we do issue infringements.”
Investigation reveals Victoria's hotel quarantine system was stretched, cobbled together
An investigation from Richard Baker and Clay Lucas has revealed some of the extent of the problems with Victoria's hotel quarantine system, breaches within which have been blamed for the state's current coronavirus crisis.
Leaked emails show Victoria's hotel quarantine system was stretched and cobbled together, with even the private security companies hired to help were confused about who was in charge.
A guest and staff at Rydges Hotel in Carlton in April.Credit:Penny Stephens
Two months into the hotel quarantine program, the emails reveal, the Department of Jobs was still managing the logistics of hundreds of potentially infected incoming passengers each day and allocating them and security guards to various hotels.
But these officials had little experience in logistics or public health. They were drawn from such areas as animal welfare, aviation investment and the department's regional offices.
Tomorrow, the government's hotel quarantine inquiry will ask its first public questions about the debacle that seeded the coronavirus outbreak that has left Melbourne locked in stage four restrictions.
Melbourne parents shouldn't have to pay childcare gap fees during lockdown: Education Minister
By Rachael Dexter
Melbourne parents shouldn’t have to pay gap fees to childcare centres to keep their place at childcare centres while their children aren’t attending, federal Education Minister Dan Tehan said this morning.
From tomorrow, most children in early childhood education and kindergarten will have to be kept at home during the six-week stage four lockdown.
Education Minister Dan Tehan is due to announce a support package for Victoria's childcare sector.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
In response, the federal government, which funds the sector, is today announcing a new rushed funding package to tide over centres until the end of the lockdown.
“Obviously if [parents are] keeping their kids at home and they're keeping them enrolled our view is that they shouldn’t have to pay fees,” Mr Tehan told Radio National this morning.
The Education Minister said although it was ultimately up to the individual providers to waive the gap fees, the funding announcement would incentivise providers to do so while allowing children to remain enrolled.
“Obviously they still get access to the childcare subsidy so it's in there in their benefit to do so,” he said.
Mr Tehan said the announcement of a “triple guarantee” will be made about 11am this morning.
“We're going to be making sure we're looking after parents so that they can keep their places so we look after enrolment [and] we want to be making sure that there’s continuity of funding there for services,” he said.
Mr Tehan said a “new arrangement” had been devised to keep childcare workers paid, after a review found JobKeeper hadn’t reached about a third of early education workers.
Transport union calls for masks on trains and buses in NSW
Still on masks in NSW, and the transport union has called for face coverings to be made mandatory on buses and trains.
Currently, NSW Health has "strongly recommended" people wear masks on public transport. Anecdotally, more people have been wearing masks this week on the trains, but it is nowhere near the majority of commuters – maybe around one in four.
A bus driver wearing a mask in Rushcutters Bay, in Sydney's east.Credit:Janie Barrett
Secretary of the Rail, Tram and Bus Union David Babineau told Ben Fordham on 2GB this morning he had been advocating for masks on public transport for a long time, particularly for buses.
"We have had companies that operate the bus companies in Sydney offer masks to drivers who want them, and that does cover the bases at the moment," he said, adding that making them mandatory for passengers would not do any harm.
"In the middle of the pandemic is when you need the most info and you're never going to have it ... there's so much unknown and we need to be proactive about safety," he said.
“These people catching buses, they’ve got no other choice to get around, let’s make it as safe as possible.”
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2020-08-04 23:16:00Z
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