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Queensland border decision finalised in early morning phone call
By Lydia Lynch
The decision to reopen Queensland’s border to all of NSW came down to the wire and was finalised in an early morning phone call between Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young on Thursday.
Up until Wednesday night, NSW contact tracers were still racing to link six mystery infections before Queensland’s border restrictions were reviewed.
Queensland’s strict border policy requires declared hotspots to record 28 days straight without a mystery case of COVID-19 before travel restrictions are eased.
The most recent unlinked case was on January 15, meaning NSW was only on day 13 of the required 28 day streak.
However, it is understood NSW Health authorities were able to find convincing links between the final six cases in the past 24 hours.
Ms Palaszczuk is expected to hold a press conference from Cairns, in far north Queensland later this morning.
Victoria records 22nd consecutive day without locally acquired cases
Victoria has reached 22 consecutive days without a new locally acquired COVID-19 case. Three new cases have emerged in hotel quarantine.
There were 14,494 tests carried out in Victoria on Wednesday and there are now a total of 27 active cases, all in hotel quarantine.
Analysis ranks the countries that handled COVID-19 best
By Anthony Galloway
Democracies have slightly outperformed authoritarian countries in suppressing the coronavirus, according to an analysis that found smaller populations and competent bureaucracies were the major factors in managing the global pandemic.
The COVID Performance Index compiled by the Lowy Institute ranked 98 countries’ handling of the COVID-19 outbreak, finding New Zealand performed the best while Australia sits in eighth place.
Australia came in eighth place of the best-performing countries in suppressing COVID-19.Credit:James Brickwood
New Zealand was closely followed by Vietnam, Thailand and Cyprus, while the United States was the fifth-worst performing country.
There has been growing concern from western commentators that the failure of some democracies to suppress the virus will result in more countries losing faith in the model of liberal democratic government and turn to authoritarianism.
But the Lowy study reveals that on average, authoritarian countries had no prolonged advantage in suppressing the virus and democracies found “marginally more success than other forms of government in their handling of the pandemic”.
While democracies performed worse at the beginning of the pandemic and there were some notable exceptions including the United States and Britain, they pulled ahead of authoritarian and hybrid states as the outbreak worsened, which suggests democracies were better at learning from their mistakes in acting too slowly, according to Hervé Lemahieu, one of the authors of the study.
Read more: Analysis ranks the countries that handled COVID-19 best
‘Fantastic, good news’: Berejiklian welcomes border announcement
By Pallavi Singhal
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has welcomed an expected announcement that Queensland will open its border to NSW from February, as restrictions are eased in NSW from midnight tonight.
Ben Fordham from 2GB revealed the news of the Queensland border reopening to NSW – to the NSW Premier.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk made the announcement less than a minute before her NSW counterpart Gladys Berejiklian joined Fordham on air.
The Queensland government had seemingly not given the NSW Premier a heads-up about the news.
“Fantastic, good news and I hope that means a lot of families that were hoping to get together over Christmas and New Year’s and couldn’t, can reunite now,” Ms Berejiklian told Ben Fordham Live this morning.
Ms Berejiklian said she also hoped states won’t close borders to all of NSW in the future if one or two hotspots emerge again.
“I don’t think it should mean the whole state is punished … we’ve got a very sound quarantine system around Australia but within our own country, we should be allowed to move around freely,” Ms Berejiklian said.
She also said she expects restrictions will be eased even further in another fortnight if no new locally acquired cases are recorded.
Up to 30 guests will be allowed in homes and 50 people will be allowed to gather outside from midnight. Masks will also no longer be mandatory for shoppers, but will still be required for hospitality workers and on public transport.
“We’re encouraging people to go back to work, that’s why we’re keeping masks on public transport … so they have that level of safety and confidence to go back to the workplace,” Ms Berejiklian said.
She said health experts have advised her to wait two fortnights after the last recorded local case before easing restrictions further.
Once that is achieved, Ms Berejiklian said the government plans to reduce social distancing in businesses from four square metres per person to two square metres.
“At the moment, it’s too risky to say, ‘let everything be eased’, and then if we have a superspreading event, we’ll be back to where we were before Christmas,” she said.
However, she said the outlook for further easing of restrictions “is great”.
Queensland to open border to NSW
Queensland will reopen its border to NSW on Monday, February 1, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has announced on Nine’s Today show. We’ll get more details as soon as we can.
‘Not losing our time’: IOC insists Olympic Games will go ahead in Tokyo
By Latika Bourke
The President of the International Olympic Committee insists the already-postponed Tokyo games will go ahead in July.
But he could not guarantee there would be spectators and denied that pushing ahead with the tournament as the world faces lethal third-waves of the coronavirus pandemic was “irresponsible”.
Speaking to the media after a four-and-a-half-hour executive board meeting IOC President Thomas Bach said the body had committed to the games going ahead.
IOC President Thomas Bach discussing the Tokyo Olympics.
IOC President Thomas Bach discussing the Tokyo Olympics.
He said speculation that the games would be cancelled or postponed again as the coronavirus pandemic continues to ravage much of the world was hurting the athletes and not helpful.
“We are not losing our time and energy on the speculations but we are fully concentrating on the opening ceremony on the 23rd of July this year,” he said.
“We are not speculating on whether the games are taking place, we are working on how the games will take place.
“We are working on the basis of having all athletes there in Tokyo for all events,” he said.
Read more: ‘Not losing our time’: IOC insists Olympic Games will go ahead in Tokyo
Good morning
Good morning, we’re back with today’s coronavirus blog, bringing you the latest news and press conference livestreams through the day.
Before we get going, let’s have a quick look at what happened yesterday:
And with that, welcome to Thursday!
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https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMimAFodHRwczovL3d3dy5zbWguY29tLmF1L25hdGlvbmFsL2Nvcm9uYXZpcnVzLXVwZGF0ZXMtbGl2ZS1hdXN0cmFsaWEtaW4tdG9wLTEwLWNvdW50cmllcy1mb3ItY292aWQtMTktcmVzcG9uc2UtbnN3LXJlc3RyaWN0aW9ucy1lYXNlZC0yMDIxMDEyOC1wNTZ4ZDQuaHRtbNIBmAFodHRwczovL2FtcC5zbWguY29tLmF1L25hdGlvbmFsL2Nvcm9uYXZpcnVzLXVwZGF0ZXMtbGl2ZS1hdXN0cmFsaWEtaW4tdG9wLTEwLWNvdW50cmllcy1mb3ItY292aWQtMTktcmVzcG9uc2UtbnN3LXJlc3RyaWN0aW9ucy1lYXNlZC0yMDIxMDEyOC1wNTZ4ZDQuaHRtbA?oc=5
2021-01-27 21:17:00Z
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