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Watch live: Press conference with Health Minister Greg Hunt
A press conference on the vaccine rollout with Health Minister Greg Hunt is due to start shortly.
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Victoria’s five-day lockdown had a ‘minimal’ impact on state finances, state treasury head says
By Noel Towell
Victoria’s Public Accounts and Estimates Committee is up and running over at Spring Street with the Treasury and Finance agencies up first this morning.
The recent five-day lockdown is likely to have a ‘minimal’ impact on Victoria’s public finances, the boss of the Department of Treasury and Finance has told the committee.
There will be a yet-to-be calculated impact on the economy from the ‘circuit-breaker’ shutdown, David Martine told the Committee, but any hit to the government’s bottom line and the surplus/deficit position won’t amount to much.
Yesterday, the Andrews government announced a $143 million package to assist businesses impacted by the recent lockdown.
Victorian contact tracers meeting benchmarks in containing Holiday Inn cluster
By David Estcourt
Health Minister Martin Foley shared some positive news in relation to the Holiday Inn cluster and Victoria’s contract tracing efforts to contain the outbreak.
Mr Foley said that benchmarks that the government put in place to ensure contact tracing was kept at a high standard have been met.
Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley. Credit:Scott McNaughton
“We are currently managing and monitoring and testing the remaining primary close contacts associated with the Holiday Inn cluster,” Mr Foley said.
“For a third straight day the number of new contacts to notify the department within the 48-hour benchmark met the 100% mark, and that now runs over the course of the last week at 99.9% for that period of time.“
NSW records no new cases, but virus fragments detected in south-west Sydney
By Mary Ward
NSW has recorded yet another day without a local coronavirus case, continuing the state’s longest stretch without community transmission since the start of the pandemic.
It has now been 36 days since the state had a locally acquired case.
Testing numbers remained higher than last month on Monday, with 12,175 tests reported after 13,586 were reported in the previous 24 hours.
NSW frontline health and emergency workers are amongst the first in NSW to get the Covid-19 vaccination at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Vaccination Hub on MondayCredit:Toby Verna
But fragments of the virus that causes COVID-19 were recently detected at a waste treatment plan in Glenfield, in south-west Sydney.
Despite there being “a number” of recently recovered cases living in the area, NSW Health urged people in the area to be particularly vigilant in coming forward if they developed even mild symptoms, warning all NSW residents against complacency amid a string of no cases.
“There is still a risk of COVID-19 spreading into the community given that new cases are regularly detected among overseas arrivals,” it said.
“It is critical that everyone continues to come forward for testing if they have even the mildest of symptoms.“
There was one new case in a returned overseas traveller in hotel quarantine during the reporting period, bringing the state’s case total to 4961.
First ACT resident receives the COVID-19 vaccine
By Rachel Clun
The first ACT resident has just received a dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.
Maddy Williams, 22, has been working as a COVID testing nurse.
Before getting her shot, Ms Williams said she was excited.
This morning, the first vaccine shots have also been delivered in Victoria, Queensland and South Australia (all of which we have posted about separately in the blog).
New South Wales had a slight headstart, with some doses administered to a small group that included Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Sunday.
Western Australia’s vaccine rollout to begin later today
By Franziska Rimrod
Two hotel quarantine nurses will be the first people in Western Australia to receive the COVID-19 Pfizer vaccine on Monday morning.
The state received an initial consignment of 4500 doses on Sunday – which is estimated to have a 90 per cent efficacy rate - marking a significant milestone in the global fight against coronavirus.
WA Health communicable disease control senior medical advisor, Paul Effler, said the four trays of vials were transported from Sydney in a large esky, surrounded by dry ice pellets to keep the vaccine at minus 80 degrees throughout the cross-country trip.
The doses are being stored at Perth Children’s Hospital’s pharmacy freezer.
“We are so lucky, here in Western Australia, to have an opportunity to receive this vaccine ahead of the type of community outbreak we have seen devastate so many countries throughout the world,” he said.
“Moving this extremely valuable and fragile vaccine across Australia has been a logistical challenge – made even more complex by its exact storage and handling requirements.”
Prior to being thawed for use, the vaccine must be kept out of the light and maintained at a temperature of between minus 60 and minus 90 degrees.
Staff and residents at Aegis Woodlake will be the first people from an aged care facility to receive the jab, with vaccinations commencing from 10.45am local time today.
No new coronavirus cases confirmed in Victoria
By Craig Butt
There were no new COVID-19 cases confirmed in Victoria on Monday.
Victoria’s Health Minister Martin Foley said two indeterminate test results were received yesterday for hotel quarantine workers at the Novotel and Pullman hotels, but in follow-up tests the pair tested negative.
“This just goes to show the risk-averse nature in which those daily test results are dealt with,” he said.
Vaccine rollout begins in Queensland
By Lydia Lynch
A nurse who works where COVID-19 positive patients are treated was the first person to be vaccinated on Queensland soil.
Zoe Park is one of 100 people set to be vaccinated at the Gold Coast University Hospital on Monday morning.
Nurse Zoe Park received the first COVID-19 vaccine on Queensland soil on Monday morningCredit:Nigel Hallett
A hospital cleaner and a police officer were also among the first to receive the jab.
The first doses of the Pfizer vaccine touched down at Brisbane Airport on Sunday morning and will be injected into a few hundred arms on the Gold Coast, Brisbane and Cairns this week.
There were no local acquired cases detected on Monday for the 46th consecutive day. Two people were diagnosed inside hotel quarantine.
US coronavirus death toll approaches half a million
By John Raby
The US stands at the brink of a once-unthinkable tally: 500,000 people lost to the coronavirus.
A year into the pandemic, the running total of lives lost was about 498,000 — roughly the population of Kansas City, Missouri, and just shy of the size of Atlanta. The figure compiled by Johns Hopkins University on Sunday, local time, surpasses the number of people who died in 2019 of chronic lower respiratory diseases, stroke, Alzheimer’s, flu and pneumonia combined.
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has praised Vermont’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Credit:AP
“It’s nothing like we have ever been through in the last 102 years, since the 1918 influenza pandemic,” the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, said on CNN’s State of the Union. About 675,000 Americans died of the 1918 influenza pandemic, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
AP
NSW frontline excited for ‘extra layer’ of protection
Frontline workers who received some of NSW’s first doses of the coronavirus vaccine have expressed excitement about the rollout, although they know the pandemic is far from over.
Hotel quarantine nurse Brad McEntee said the vaccine was “an extra layer” of protection between his work and the community.
“We will continue to have extremely strict measures in place; we’re still a long way off the end, I think, but this is a step in the right direction,” he said.
Emergency/medical workers register to have the vaccine shot at RPA Hospital in Sydney.Credit:Peter Rae
Sarah Nilsson, who works as a nurse manager processing arrivals at Sydney Airport, said there were times during the past year when she had drastically limited her movements due to the nature of her work, such as when she worked at the domestic airport during Victoria’s second wave.
“When they were getting 800 cases a day I certainly limited what I was doing: I didn’t go to the shops, I just went to work and went home.“
Asked if she had a message for those who might be hesitant to receive the vaccine, Ms Nilsson said: “It’s worthwhile doing for yourself, for your community and for your family.”
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2021-02-22 00:23:09Z
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