Summary
- Perth and two WA regions have been placed in a five-day lockdown after a hotel quarantine security guard tested positive to COVID-19. The lockdown sparked panic buying in Perth yesterday with people lining up outside pharmacies and supermarkets.
- Anyone who has been in Perth’s metropolitan area, the Peel region and the South West region of WA is not able to enter Victoria or Tasmania without an exemption. Queensland and the Northern Territory will require anyone who arrives from the WA hotspots to undergo 14 days’ quarantine.
- Work is under way to remove blockades at the Queensland/NSW border. Greater Sydney is no longer declared a hotspot and millions of residents across 35 local government areas will be able to enter Queensland from today without undergoing mandatory hotel quarantine. Anyone from NSW who is in hotel quarantine already will be released today.
- Victoria has reached 26 days without a case of local transmission and recorded one new case in hotel quarantine. NSW reported its 14th day without a local case on Sunday, while Queensland reported its 20th consecutive day of no local transmissions.
- Captain Sir Tom Moore, the 100-year-old World War II veteran who united Britain during the dark early days of the coronavirus pandemic, has been admitted to hospital with COVID-19.
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AFLW season in turmoil as teams thrown into isolation
By Daniel Cherny and Sam McClure
The COVID infection in a Perth hotel quarantine security guard has also affected the AFWL season.
Ticket sales for round two have been put on hold after players and staff from both Adelaide and Greater Western Sydney began two weeks of isolation in Adelaide after arriving back from Perth on Sunday night.
Giants players leave the field after losing to Fremantle on Sunday.Credit:Getty
Both the Crows and Giants played matches in Western Australia on the weekend in round one and flew back together on Sunday night just before WA entered its five-day lockdown following the positive coronavirus case in the state.
While Adelaide and GWS players managed to flee WA, they have been forced into mandatory self-quarantine in accordance with South Australian government guidelines for those returning from WA.
This includes Crows AFL star Tom Lynch, who is an assistant coach with the women’s team and also travelled to Perth.
Both clubs have been contacted for comment.
The Crows and Giants were both set to play in Adelaide this weekend, against West Coast and Fremantle respectively. But even leaving the isolation situation to one side, there are serious doubts as to whether the Eagles and Dockers would be able to travel to South Australia for the games.
The Giants had already been in South Australia after leaving Sydney a month ago in the wake of Sydney’s COVID-19 outbreak.
First day of ‘drastic and immediate’ lockdown as WA aims to crush COVID-19 in its tracks
By Heather McNeill
If you’re just joining us, Perth has woken to its first day of full lockdown after being one of the few jurisdictions in the world to have avoided the harsh pandemic measure for more than a year.
Premier Mark McGowan announced the stay-at-home order on Sunday in response to a security guard at a Perth quarantine hotel testing positive for what is suspected to be the highly infectious UK strain of coronavirus.
The ‘dramatic and immediate’ shutdown meant the first day of school for thousands of children on Monday was put on hold and the daily work commute reduced to a trickle of cars along the city’s usual bustling freeway.
The Perth Scorchers’ knockout match, scheduled to take place on Thursday in front of a crowd of 30,000-plus at Optus Stadium, will now be played in Canberra. Fringe Festival has cancelled shows for the week and the coming Perth Festival has been thrown into doubt.
Previously, WA’s harshest lockdown rules — in place for much of April 2020 — restricted gatherings to limits of two and encouraged people to stay home where possible.
The new five-day lockdown, which expires at 6pm Friday, requires people in the Perth, Peel and South West regions to stay home with the exception of four reasons – work if you cannot work from home; essential shopping; medical appointments; and exercise for one hour a day in your neighbourhood with a maximum of one other person.
Anyone venturing outside during the lockdown will be required to wear a mask – marking the first time since the pandemic emerged that Western Australians have been ordered to do so.
By comparison, masks were mandatory in Melbourne at all times outside the home for more than three months to November, while in the UK, face masks have been required in indoor public places and on public transport since July as the country struggles through its third major lockdown.
Premier Mark McGowan said the sudden WA lockdown — impacting 80 per cent of the state’s population — followed more than 10 months without a case of COVID-19 in the community.
“Our model is to deal with it very, very quickly and very, very harshly so that we can bring it under control and not have community spread of the virus as you’ve seen in other parts of the world,” he said.
From face masks to checkpoints: Everything you need to know about WA’s lockdown
Perth patient turns to social media to make COVID warning, but authorities believe he’s not infectious
By Daile Cross and Emma Young
A man who says he tested positive to COVID-19 after going to a Perth emergency department with difficulty breathing, what he describes as “heavy brain fog” and memory problems has posted to social media to warn the Western Australian community.
Philip Latour said he had been kept in hospital after a rapid swab test came back positive to COVID-19.
The post made by Philip Latour. Credit:Facebook
He is now waiting on further testing to confirm the result. He said his plan was to inform the community as early as possible so they could act accordingly and be responsible.
“I went into the emergency department by myself because of breathing difficulties ... I am glad I did instead of going to work on Monday and possible [sic] infecting all my workmates,” he wrote.
“I wish no one what I am feeling right now so I made the decision to post this which wasn’t easy at first ... I feel guilt, also shame and fault.”
Mr Latour said he had followed all procedures required of him and he was proud of himself for going to the hospital by himself in pain.
“We can always ask ourselves why how and when or who’s fault it is but this won’t solve anything ... we need to stay strong and fight through this together,” he wrote.
Mr Latour said health officials had asked him what he had done and where he had been over the past seven days. But Chief Health Officer Dr Andy Robertson said the Health Department believed this was a historic case and that this person was infected in Mexico in December 2020.
“He has subsequently completed two weeks in hotel quarantine in Sydney and there were no cases in the hotel that could have infected him,” Dr Robertson said.
“His current PCR tests are very weak, which are in keeping with him being non-infectious and having infection some time ago.
“The nasal-throat PCR will be repeated tomorrow, so that the trend can be confirmed. The expectation is that this result will get weaker and/or go negative.”
AG says authorities considered turning back his plane from Perth to Canberra
By Nick Bonyhady
Attorney-General Christian Porter said authorities considered turning a plane carrying himself and several other senior federal politicians from Perth around before it landed in Canberra last night.
Mr Porter, who is responsible for the government’s industrial relations reforms and leads the government in the House of Representatives, is now at his accommodation in Canberra while the ACT government and Parliamentary leaders decide whether to allow WA politicians into the building.
“WA is into five days lockdown and we were on a plane last night. I think they had a good debate as to whether or not to turn the plane around actually, but that didn’t happen and we’ve landed so the rules are the rules and we’ll abide by them,” Mr Porter said.
Attorney-General and Minister for Industrial Relations Christian PorterCredit:Alex Ellinghausen
Asked whether West Australian Premier Mark McGowan, who has clashed with other state and federal leaders over his handling of the virus, was now learning a lesson, Mr Porter did not answer directly. But, he said: “You could do a lot worse than look to see how the New South Wales Government has performed which has been splendidly.”
West Australian hotel quarantine a ‘recipe for disaster’, traveller claims
By Hamish Hastie
A woman staying in the same hotel that produced WA’s first local COVID-19 case in 10 months has warned the hotel is primed for more cases due to inadequate ventilation and poor PPE use.
Arsiyanti Ardie arrived in WA from Jakarta on January 21 and was sent straight to the Four Points by Sheraton in Perth where she said hotel staff were being provided with poor quality PPE that was not being worn properly.
“I kind of look down the hallway to look at the guards sitting on their phones and they will have their masks below their nose and hanging loose,” she said.
“And the workers are just not in the right PPE. They need to be protected too.”
Arsiyanti Ardie fears for her health in hotel quarantine at the Four Points in Perth.
Ms Ardie said the air in the hotel was being recirculated, a factor that Queensland health authorities believe could be the reason for the spread of COVID-19 cases from a returned traveller in the Grand Chancellor hotel in Brisbane in early January.
“If you want a Victoria-style recipe for disaster, this is it.”
Ms Ardie has autoimmune disorders and respiratory, heart and kidney disease and said if she gets COVID-19 she would likely die.
“If I get Covid, I die. Period. I cut medical treatment in Jakarta short because COVID is the greater risk there and I simply have to be in a safe place. Turns out I jumped from the frying pan into the fire,” she said.
Daily COVID-19 testing took three weeks to roll out in WA quarantine hotels: Premier
Daily testing of hotel quarantine workers, which could have identified WA’s first community transmission case of COVID-19 in nearly 10 months several days earlier, was only rolled out on Friday, my colleague Hamish Hastie reports.
Following a National Cabinet meeting on January 8 all states and territories agreed to roll out daily tests of hotel quarantine workers after a Brisbane hotel worker was infected with the highly transmissible UK COVID-19 variant.
WA Premier Mark McGowan.Credit:Getty Images
Victoria had already been doing daily saliva testing and Queensland enacted their testing regime three days later but WA Premier Mark McGowan said on Sunday that WA had only just finished testing its new regime at the Novotel hotel last week.
“We put in place the saliva testing as quickly as we could using the health department and appropriate protocols, unfortunately, it didn’t start until late this week,” he said.
A Perth security guard contracted COVID-19 while working at the Sheraton Four Points quarantine hotel in the CBD sometime in the past week, health officials believe.
The last time the guard was tested under the old regime was January 23 despite working his last hotel quarantine shift on January 27.
It wasn’t until he started developing symptoms that he got tested again and the results came back at midnight on Saturday.
WA’s Chief Health Officer Andy Robertson said the guard became symptomatic on January 28 and was infectious from January 26, which means he spent six days in public potentially spreading the virus.
On January 13 the health department said daily saliva tests would start “as soon as possible”.
Australian Medical Association WA president Dr Andrew Miller has lashed the state government for not introducing daily testing sooner.
“He was working in a system which I believe did not provide him with the appropriate PPE to protect him from the virus, did not provide him with adequate ventilation and therefore I think also he was not getting the daily testing,” he said.
“Daily testing only started on Friday and we all know it’s now one year since coronavirus first visited Australia, this is happening too late.”
Dr Miller also criticised the state for continuing to allow hotel quarantine workers to work second jobs when it was revealed the security guard also worked as a rideshare driver, though Mr McGowan said he had not driven for the company since becoming infectious.
“People working in quarantine facilities need to be on contracts that pay them sufficiently and put in place sufficient prohibition that prevent them from working other places,” he said.
This sounds all too familiar for Victorians who endured a catastrophic second coronavirus wave after hotel quarantine security guards contracted the virus and spread it throughout the community.
The final report of the Victorian COVID-19 Hotel Quarantine Inquiry set out new guidelines for the state’s hotel quarantine system. Hotel quarantine in Victoria is now operated by a single designated government agency with a clear chain of political accountability to a single responsible minister. Those involved must not work in other jobs. And there is no contracting out.
Victoria reaches 26 days without a locally acquired COVID case
Good news for Victoria this morning – the state has clocked up 26 days without a case of community transmission. One new case has been detected in hotel quarantine.
More than 10,600 tests were carried out in the state yesterday.
Frydenberg ‘heartless, cruel’ towards Queensland tourism operators: Miles
By Natassia Chrysanthos
Keeping with Queensland’s woes for a moment ...
The state’s Acting Premier Steven Miles has blamed the federal government’s international border closures for his state’s tourism woes, and called Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s rejection of further federal assistance for businesses left struggling both “heartless” and “cruel”.
Sunshine State Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk last week called for an extension of JobKeeper for tourism operators but was rebuffed politicians including federal Tourism Minister Dan Tehan and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg who had little sympathy given the state’s long border closures.
The Queensland government says it’s the international border closure that is crippling the state’s tourism industry, especially on the Great Barrier Reef.Credit:Tourism Queensland
But Mr Miles rejected claims the state is to blame for the tourism sector’s struggles because of its hard domestic border policies.
Mr Miles said Queensland’s domestic tourism was “doing quite well right now” but that many businesses were reliant on international tourism.
“The national government who closed those international borders ... they need to consider to provide support to those businesses reliant on international tourism,” he said on Sunrise.
“I saw this morning [Mr Frydenberg] told businesses they should find a new way to make a profit. That’s unrealistic for many of these tourism products which are designed for international tourists. While many of them of course will change their businesses ... our [federal] Tourism Minister will need this product when international tourism returns.
“I think those remarks from Minister Frydenberg, they’re heartless, they’re cruel.”
Mr Miles nonetheless invited interstate tourists up north.
“Our message to people in Sydney and indeed to any of the other states other than Perth right now is please do consider coming to Queensland,” he said.
NSW Premier ‘playing politics’ over Queensland border approach, acting premier says
By Jocelyn Garcia
In the meantime, the border stoush between NSW and Queensland continues (even though border barricades are being dismantled as I type this) ...
Queensland Acting Premier, Steven Miles, has accused NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian of playing politics over Queensland’s approach to border closures.
Acting Premier Steven Miles said border restrictions were “ramping up” to protect Queenslanders.Credit:Jono Searle/Getty Images
When asked about the fractured relationship between the Queensland and NSW Premiers, Mr Miles said he didn’t understand it.
“Let’s not forget that the NSW government locked Sydney down too so this wasn’t a decision we made by ourselves,” he told ABC Brisbane radio a short time ago.
“[Queensland chief health officer] Dr Jeannette Young made those decisions in very, very close conversations with NSW’s chief health officer.
“I think mostly Glady’s comments are about playing to the politics of Sydney and NSW.”
We should note that NSW imposed a hard lockdown on the northern beaches after the Avalon cluster emerged, not all of Sydney.
WA’s hotel quarantine system under fire: COVID-positive security guard also worked as rideshare driver
Western Australia’s hotel quarantine system is under fire this morning after it was revealed that the quarantine hotel security guard who contracted COVID-19 may have also worked as a rideshare driver.
“We’re advised that he may have been a driver for one of the rideshare companies. We’re also advised that he has not worked since he ... worked last time in the hotel,” WA Premier Mark McGowan said at his press conference yesterday.
“The last time he worked in the hotel was Wednesday, but we’re advised - and this has been carefully followed - that he did not do any other work in the time since.”
It was also revealed that WA hotel quarantine workers were not being tested daily, unlike their counterparts in other states, until this week.
“Daily testing has commenced, but it’s a recent testing process - it’s only just commenced this week,” WA Health Minister Roger Cook said.
“This gentleman was subject to regular testing as part of our previous seven-day testing regime.”
The president of the WA branch of the Australian Medical Association is “very frustrated”, to say the least.
Dr Andrew Miller told Sunrise this morning: “We are still running these sort of hybrid hotel quarantine facilities. We want professional quarantine facilities, not something that’s been shoe-horned into a Sheraton.”
“Hotel quarantine was OK when it was the emergency, but we should have transitioned by now, using Commonwealth funds and state manpower to get the thing actually set up as a proper quarantine facility, with the ventilation, with the PPE, with the staffing.
“People shouldn’t be working double jobs and certainly not as an Uber driver. I don’t think you would be wanting to jump into someone’s Corolla, even if they are a super nice person, if you knew that they had also been working shifts in a quarantine hotel.”
Victoria’s quarantine system was overhauled after security guards who contracted COVID-19 while working in Melbourne quarantine hotels spread the virus throughout the community, sparking the state’s catastrophic second wave.
Under Victoria’s new quarantine model, which has been adopted by other states, no one working in quarantine hotels can hold another job, and all workers are tested daily.
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2021-01-31 23:18:00Z
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