Saturday’s press conferences
The coronavirus blog brought readers all three press conference this morning, several of which clashed.
Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese was first up at 9.45am.
Then the prime minister and Victorian health authorities will be giving an update at the same time.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison will visit the Collaroy SLSC in New South Wales at 10am.
And Victorian Minister for Health Martin Foley and Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton will give a coronavirus update at 10am in the St Kilda Botanical Gardens.
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Updated: Coronavirus fragments found in wastewater for second day in a row in Victoria
By Aisha Dow
Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton has urged Victorians to remain alert for coronavirus symptoms after the virus was unexpectedly detected at sewage sites around Melbourne.
He has also urged the Victorian public to ignore the anti-vaccination movement, saying that the vaccination program is “our way out of this” pandemic.
Professor Sutton said that having virtually no community transmission in Australia offered a false sense of security.Credit:Penny Stephens
As Australia prepares to roll out the first round of vaccinations on Monday, anti-vaccination protesters are set to converge on capital cities and regional towns across the nation.
Argentine health minister resigns over claims of COVID-19 vaccine allocation
By AP
Santiago: Argentina’s health minister resigned on Friday following reports that people had been able to use connections to get access to COVID-19 vaccines to which they were not entitled.
Gines Gonzalez Garcia said in a letter posted on Twitter that individuals were able to sidestep proper procedure for vaccinations due to “unintended confusion” in his office while he was away.
Alberto Fernández, President of Argentina.Credit:UNTV
Two sources in the presidency said earlier on Friday that President Alberto Fernandez had asked for Gines’ resignation after allegations were made in the media of at least 10 people receiving vaccinations without following the proper procedure, among them a veteran journalist who claimed he had received a shot after speaking directly with the minister.
The growing scandal throws a spotlight on wider fears in the region over corruption and access to vaccines, which are in short supply.
Earlier this month, Peru’s health and foreign ministers quit and its former president was placed under criminal investigation after reports of hundreds of Peruvian officials and others receiving vaccine doses outside of clinical trials and before the national immunization program began.
In Argentina, well-know local journalist Horacio Verbitsky said he had received a shot after approaching the minister.
“I called my old friend Ginés González García and he told me to go to the Posadas Hospital,” Verbitsky, who is in his seventies, told radio station El Destape.
Since December, Argentina has been using Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine to inoculate frontline health workers, though deliveries have lagged far behind what it initially hoped for. The country has started inoculating some people over 70 this week but appointments are scarce and people are supposed to follow a procedure that involves registering first.
As of Wednesday in Argentina, about 250,000 people had received two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. The country of around 45 million people has confirmed over 2 million coronavirus infections and 51,000 deaths.
Argentina’s state news agency said Carla Vizzotti, a current vice minister in the health ministry, would be the next health minister, although there was no official confirmation.
Dubai World Expo 2020: Australia unveils World Expo pavilion, but will anyone see it?
By Anthony Dennis
It’s as big and spectacular as the Olympics, runs for considerably longer, attracts more visitors overall and costs about the same to stage.
Yet it’s probably the largest major event of 2021 that you’ve never heard about, even with Australia’s lavish participation now being quietly unveiled.
Australia pavilion at Dubai World Expo
Just like the troubled 2020 (now 2021) Tokyo Olympics, the pandemic-plagued $US7 billion 2020 Dubai world exposition, or “Expo”, was postponed last year due to COVID-19.
Now Australia’s federal government-backed pavilion, christened “Blue Sky Dreaming”, is ready for a rescheduled October 1 opening and will run until March 31 next year.
Construction of the showcase Australian pavilion, which seeks to highlight Australia’s “diversity, ingenuity and contribution through 60,000 years of innovation”, was completed on January 31.
Designed by Brisbane-based architectural firm bureau^proberts, the building showcases a dramatic roof structure that appears to hover and is said to be inspired by the cumulus cloud, a “feature of the diverse Australian landscape”.
However, with international borders closed for the foreseeable future due to the pandemic, a question remains as to whether any ordinary Australians, let alone other international tourists, will be able to see the pavilion in person.
Yet the federal government remains committed to the event, says a spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).
Virus detected in sewage network at Auburn, NSW
By Michaela Whitbourn
NSW has recorded no local coronavirus cases for the 34th day in a row, but health authorities are asking residents in the Auburn sewage catchment to be on alert for symptoms.
“Fragments of the virus that causes COVID-19 have been detected at a sewage network site at Auburn. People who are recently recovered from COVID-19 can sometimes continue to shed virus fragments into the sewerage system for several weeks even after they are no longer infectious,” NSW Health said on Saturday.
“NSW Health is aware of previous recent COVID-19 cases, including in returned overseas travellers who live in this catchment but is asking everyone in the area to be vigilant in monitoring for symptoms, and if they appear get tested and isolate immediately until they receive a negative result.”
The Auburn catchment takes sewage from the suburbs of Condell Park, Bankstown, Potts Hill, Birrong, Sefton, Bass Hill, Chester Hill, Regents Park, Chullora, Homebush West, Strathfield, Rookwood, Sydney Olympic Park, Newington, Granville, Clyde, Lidcombe, Auburn, South Granville, Guildford, Silverwater, Rosehill, Berala and Yagoona.
The state recorded one new overseas-acquired case of COVID-19 in the 24 hours to 8pm last night. The total number of confirmed cases in the state to date is 4,957.
Ignore ‘fervent’ anti-vaxxers, says Sutton
By Danielle Militec
Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton has asked people to ignore the anti-vaccination movement, saying vaccination is the ‘way out of this’.
As Australia prepares to roll out the first round of vaccinations on Monday, anti-vaccination protesters are set to converge on capital cities and regional towns across the nation.
Brett Sutton.Credit:The Age
Organisers say they are “against mandatory COVID vaccinations” but health experts have already rejected calls for mandatory vaccinations.
Professor Sutton said that having virtually no community transmission in Australia offered a false sense of security. However, he said without a vaccination roll out the alternative would be to have a formal hotel quarantine system in place forever.
“I think people will, over time, see that the vaccine is working and that it is protecting individuals and that we are not seeing issues of quality and safety and there will be an increase in confidence,” he said.
During the state’s morning COVID-19 update on Saturday, Professor Sutton also revealed a new study in Israel had shown ‘early signs’ of vaccines, especially Pfizer, significantly reducing transmission.
Professor Sutton urged Australians with questions about vaccines to seek out trusted health information.
“It is legitimate to ask questions and I would encourage all those individuals who have seen information that they are unsure about the legitimacy of that information to go to trusted individuals, go to your GP ... go to trusted information sources.”
As Victoria prepares for vaccine rollout, questions linger over whether it will stop spread
By Aisha Dow
Vaccinations will begin in Victoria from Monday but the big question remains how much of an impact it will have preventing people from passing on the virus, and therefore stopping the persistent leaks we have seen out of hotel quarantine.
There is clear evidence the Pfizer vaccine provides significant protection for those who are vaccinated, but it hasn’t yet been established if it stops them from passing on the virus to others.
Masks will be needed in outdoor spaces where you cannot physically distance.Credit:Chris Hopkins
Victorian chief health officer Brett Sutton pointed to encouraging early evidence from Israel this month suggesting that the vaccine may indeed reduce transmission.
We believe he is probably referring to this research preprint (which means it is yet to undergo a peer review) which found that people who had the Pfizer vaccine had a significantly lower viral load after undergoing the jab compared to unvaccinated patients.
“These reduced viral loads hint to lower infectiousness,” the researchers said.
However Professor Sutton said that health authorities would not be relying on the vaccination to put a halt to the leaks out of hotel quarantine.
“The risk cannot be made zero,” he said.
The chief health officer said authorities had made changes off the back of the recent outbreaks, including ensuring neighbouring returned travellers didn’t open their doors at the same time and introducing buffer rooms.
Remain alert for COVID-19 symptoms, says Victorian CHO
By Aisha Dow
Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton is asking Victorians to remain alert for coronavirus symptoms, after the virus was unexpectedly detected at a number of sewage sites around Melbourne.
Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton.Credit:Getty Images
It could be the result of a recovered case still shedding the virus, or it may be a sign of something more concerning.
“When we get detection in sewage it might mean that it is recovered case, but it can also mean that we have missed someone because they are positive, because they haven’t yet been tested,” Professor Sutton said.
These are the locations that the virus has been detected in wastewater:
- Wantirna South, Boronia and parts of Bayswater, Ferntree Gully, Knoxfield and Tremont (February 13/15),
- St Kilda East, Caulfield North, Caulfield, Balaclava and Elsternwick (February 13/16),
- Carrum Downs, Langwarrin and Skye (February 13/17).
“These last locations, Carrum Downs, Langwarrin and Skye, there has been a detections for a second-consecutive day so [it is] really important especially for those listed area if there are any symptoms please get tested and you will get a result very quickly,” Professor Sutton said.
‘The numbers are positive’: Victorian Health Minister
By Daniella Miletic
Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley has confirmed the state has recorded no new locally acquired cases of coronavirus and no new cases in hotel quarantine.
There were 17,701 tests processed on Friday and there are now 25 active coronavirus cases across the state.
Health Minister Martin Foley on Sunday.Credit:Penny Stephens
There are now 25 active cases in the state and now more than 3000 primary close contacts linked to the Holiday Inn outbreak, he said.
“The numbers are positive, the numbers are indicating that we are getting on top of this,” he said. “But it is not over yet.”
Two women in Florida ‘dressed up as grannies’ to get vaccinated, health official says
By Meryl Kornfield
The coronavirus vaccine is so coveted that two women in Florida went to extremes this week to get inoculated: They dressed as if they were elderly, health officials said.
The women, both younger than 45, wore bonnets, gloves and glasses to disguise themselves as older than 65, the age cut-off to be prioritised to get the coronavirus vaccine in Florida, according to Raul Pino, the director of the health department in Orange County, where Orlando is located.
The geriatric guise was the latest instance of people trying to cut the line to get vaccinated.Credit:AP
He attributed the deception to growing interest in the vaccine, giving the example of the women while explaining how high demand is in the area.
“This is the hottest commodity that is out there right now so we have to be very careful,” Pino said.
The geriatric guise on Wednesday was the latest instance of people trying to cut the line to get vaccinated from the deadly virus.
Last month, authorities identified a wealthy Canadian couple who had posed as locals in a remote Indigenous community to take doses meant for elders.
Perspective: I’ve dreamt of going home for a year. Now Australia’s further out of reach than ever
By Amelia Lester
Australia is closed to me. I’ve spent the better part of a year, and most of my spare moments therein, dreaming about how to get back from the US, where I live. When the Prime Minister announced that Australians needed to come home now, in the early days of the pandemic, or else they might not be able to later, I was extremely pregnant – beyond the time any doctor would allow me to fly, and, as it happens, on the verge of giving birth early.
Had I heeded ScoMo’s call and ignored the doctor’s, my baby might have arrived in an economy-class loo, somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. When my baby was a newborn, and I spent my days pacing around coaxing her to sleep, I would work through various escape scenarios in my head. The pandemic was worsening and borders were closing. Qantas had grounded its jets in the middle of the desert and that image stuck with me, a symbol of my utterly immovable fate.
A week hasn’t gone by all year when I haven’t googled “Washington DC to Sydney” flights.Credit:Getty Images
I counted the days until my baby was old enough for her first round of immunisations – the time at which we would not be wantonly irresponsible parents for taking her on a long-haul flight. But then she got her shots, and she was still so small. I couldn’t comprehend embarking on that journey.
Not yet. Not, also, with a toddler in tow. Summer arrived, and COVID became a fact of life. It seemed impossible to imagine that I had one day in the not-too-distant past hopped on a flight across the Atlantic to attend a friend’s wedding. She is a close friend, and it was a fabulous wedding. We danced in the rain – and then I got pneumonia. But still.
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2021-02-20 01:12:33Z
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