Summary
- Seven new locations across Melbourne have been added to a growing list of high-risk exposure sites linked to the Holiday Inn cluster as Victorians begin their first day of a snap five-day lockdown.
- Sydney residents returning from Melbourne will be forced into a five-day lockdown after Victorian health officials privately conceded that contact tracers took too long to get in touch with people exposed in Melbourne’s new coronavirus outbreak.
- A returned traveller blamed for spreading coronavirus through the Holiday Inn quarantine hotel by using a nebuliser says he was twice given permission from Victorian health authorities to use the medical device while in quarantine.
- Victoria’s bid to cut weekly hotel quarantine arrivals from thousands to just hundreds has set up a clash with the Morrison government, which believes the system can cope with the threat from new strains of the coronavirus without dropping numbers.
The Premier said Victoria’s lockdown was five days. The legal wording says two weeks
By Rachael Dexter
The official legal directions enforcing Victoria’s new lockdown are actually in force for two weeks, not just five days.
The Directions from Chief Health Officer which were released overnight state: “For the purposes of these directions, the stay safe period is the period beginning at 11:59:00 pm on 12 February 2021 and ending at 11:59:00 pm on 26 February 2021.”
A Department of Health spokeswoman confirmed the reading of the directions as being a default two-week period.
While it does not mean the lockdown will be in place for two weeks, the directions allow for that to happen without requiring an extension of the legal powers.
Dr Luke Beck, associate professor of constitutional law at Monash University, said it meant the government would need to reissue further directions on Tuesday to end the lockdown on Wednesday.
“But the default period at the moment is two weeks,” he said.
Dr Beck said it was “curious” that the legal instrument did not match what the Premier announced yesterday.
“Given the Premier’s announcement of a five-day lockdown you would have expected the period to be five days only with an extension issued if needed, not the other way around,” he said.
“It’s worth an explanation [from government].”
Dr Beck said the directions were different to previous lockdowns, where the dates in legal directions were only for the lockdown period publicly announced, and then extended at a later date if required.
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What time is Dan’s presser?
We have a time: 12.30pm!
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton and the state’s testing commander Jeroen Weimar will face the media in just under half an hour.
We’ll be livestreaming the press conference and will keep you abreast of the latest news on day one of Victoria’s five-day lockdown.
‘Absolutely ridiculous’: Fritz slams fans’ removal during match
American Taylor Fritz has criticised Australian Open organisers after his third-round defeat by top seed Novak Djokovic was halted for 10 minutes while fans were removed from Rod Laver Arena on Friday to comply with fresh lockdown restrictions.
The 23-year-old was on his way back to levelling his clash with an injured Djokovic when the umpire told the players to leave the court midway through the fourth set while fans made their way to the exits to comply with the COVID-19 lockdown.
Fans were asked to leave the Novak Djokovic-Taylor Fritz match at Rod Laver arena.Credit:Getty Images
The state went into a five-day lockdown from midnight after an outbreak of the virus at a hotel in the city.
“I mean, to be honest, like, completely honest, it’s absolutely ridiculous that at a grand slam match we’re asked to leave the court for 10 minutes in the middle of the match, like, in the middle of the fourth set,” he told reporters.
“I understand the fact that Victoria is going back into lockdown and people have to go. If that’s the case, then we shouldn’t have played tonight if we weren’t going to finish the match on time.”
This year’s Australian Open was delayed by three weeks so that players were given enough time to quarantine and prepare for the tournament. Limited crowds have been permitted but the next five days will be without fans.
Reuters
NSW ‘strongly advises against non-essential travel to Victoria’
By Georgina Dexter
Anyone who arrived in NSW from Victoria from 12.01am AEDT today must comply with a five-day stay-at-home order, NSW Health says.
“People subject to the order are permitted to leave their place of residence if they have a reasonable excuse. Reasonable excuses include: shopping for essential items, medical and other care and caregiving, outdoor exercise, emergencies and essential work,” a NSW Health spokesperson said.
“This supersedes the advice issued in a previous announcement yesterday, that anyone in NSW who had been in Victoria at any time on or after 29 January would be subject to a stay at home order.
“The stay-at-home requirement does not apply to people in the border region.”
NSW strongly advises against all non-essential travel to Victoria at this time.
People subject to the restrictions in Victoria should not be travelling to NSW unless they are permitted to do so,” NSW Health said.
NSW contact tracers are in the process of contacting 7000 people who travelled from Melbourne Airport to NSW between February 7 and February 9, after a Jetstar worker and another airport worker who did not have a public-facing role tested positive to COVID-19.
All 7000 people who attended any terminal at Melbourne Airport have been sent text messages. By Saturday morning, three-quarters of those who were in the Jetstar terminal in that period had been spoken to directly.
‘All hypotheses still open’ in WHO probe of COVID-19 origins
By Stephanie Nebehay
Geneva: All hypotheses are still on the table in the World Health Organisation’s search for the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, after Washington asked to review data from the WHO-led mission to China.
Tedros’ comments appeared to pull back on the investigating team’s remarks that the lab-leak theory was “extremely unlikely” and required no further study, according to Peter Ben Embarek, a food-safety scientist and head of the mission.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology in central China. WHO now says the theory the virus came from one of the institute’s labs is still on the table.Credit:AP
WHO has faced criticism since the start of the pandemic that it was too deferential to China. Former US president Donald Trump advanced the theory the virus might have escaped from a high-security virology lab in Wuhan, the Chinese city where it was first detected.
As he left China on Tuesday, Embarek said the theory had been ruled out after institute staff were questioned about what they thought about the possibility. ”They’re the best ones to dismiss the claims and provide answers to all the questions,” he said. He did not say if samples had been taken from the lab or provided by Chinese scientists.
China has long said the lab, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, never possessed the COVID-19 virus.
But Tedros told a briefing in Geneva on Saturday (AEDT): “Some questions have been raised as to whether some hypotheses have been discarded. Having spoken with some members of the team, I wish to confirm that all hypotheses remain open and require further analysis and study.”
“Some of that work may lie outside the remit and scope of this mission. We have always said that this mission would not find all the answers, but it has added important information that takes us closer to understanding the origins of the COVID-19 virus,” he said.
Reuters, Bloomberg
Which Victorian testing sites have long waiting periods?
By Rachael Dexter
Although Victorians are under stay-at-home orders for the next five days, health officials have urged people to come out for testing if they have any symptoms whatsoever or have been been in contact with an infected person or visited an exposure site.
Lines are building at testing stations around Melbourne, and the Department of Health has updated time estimates on waits here so you can plan your visit.
The following drive-through testing sites currently have estimated wait times of over 30 minutes, so you may be directed to a nearby site:
- EACH, Lilydale (120 minutes)
- Monash Health, Casey Fields (Cranbourne) (60 minutes)
- Banyule Community Health, Greensborough (60 minutes)
- EACH, Ferntree Gully (45 minutes)
- Wyndham City Council Civic Centre (35 minutes)
- Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital (35 minutes)
- Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre (30 minutes)
- Springers Leisure Centre (30 minutes)
- Darebin Arts Centre (30 minutes)
NSW records no new local cases, two overseas cases
By Georgina Mitchell
NSW has recorded no new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 for the 27th consecutive day, and two new cases in hotel quarantine.
A total of 13,088 tests were carried out to 8pm last night, compared with 14,518 the day before.
NSW has recorded new new cases of COVID-19.Credit:
“In light of the current situation in Victoria, it is vital that we maintain vigilance,” a NSW Health spokesperson said in a statement.
“A high rate of testing is one of our best defences against undetected cases in the community that could create new chains of transmission. If you have any COVID-19 symptoms, please do not delay; get tested immediately and isolate until you receive a negative result.”
Teachers prepare, parents fret as schools snap back to remote learning
By Adam Carey and Anna Prytz
Almost one million Victorian students were sent home yesterday for what is hoped will be just three days of remote learning during the state’s snap stage four lockdown.
Less than three weeks into term one, about 2270 schools across the state were told to close for all but vulnerable children and the children of permitted workers as part of the five-day lockdown.
Almost one million Victorian students will revert to remote learning for three days next week. Credit:Leon Neal/ Getty Images
Education Minister James Merlino said schools had a role to play in containing the latest outbreak of COVID-19, but the decision drew criticism from the independent schools sector and the state opposition, which labelled the move harmful to children.
Premier Daniel Andrews told reporters students would either be given homework or some limited remote learning, “but I don’t think it would be a situation akin to where we were last year”.
Schools “will do their best to make sure those are not wasted days, we’ll look to make up that time if we think there’s a deficit,” he said.
The Department of Education wrote to schools later that day, stating that they “should, to the extent possible, enable continuity of learning from home”.
“This can include remote learning programs and/or the provision of learning materials,” deputy secretary Dr David Howes said.
Principals said they were well-placed to revert to remote learning for a short time, having experienced months of it last year, but some parents fretted about their children’s wellbeing and the potential for further lost learning.
Ventilation assessments overlooked in hotel quarantine relaunch
By Aisha Dow
Detailed ventilation assessments were not completed at most of Victoria’s quarantine hotels when the state reopened its borders to coronavirus via returned travellers in December.
Advice supplied by the government reveals engineers examined fresh air exchange rates in rooms at the “hot” hotels – which deal with people infected with the virus – but did not look at “cold” hotels used to house returned travellers who have not tested positive.
The Holiday Inn at Melbourne Airport has been closed for a “terminal clean”.Credit:Jason South
The information was provided to The Age in December last year, as it examined growing concerns that poor ventilation was contributing to coronavirus spread and posed a particular danger in hotels.
“We always thought that the cold hotels would be properly audited, as well as the hot ones,” said the Australian Medical Association’s Victorian president Julian Rait.
“We should have taken what we have learnt from the hospital system and [applied it to hotel quarantine].”
It appears that it took the latest outbreak for any further assessments to be initiated. The AMA says it now believes no audit was conducted for the Melbourne Airport Holiday Inn before it became the centre of the cluster that prompted health authorities to shut down Victoria for five days.
AMA Victoria was this week calling for an initial ventilation audit of the Holiday Inn to be released publicly, but suggested that wouldn’t happen.
“There isn’t one,” said Associate Professor Rait on Friday, while backing the state government’s decision to put the state into a five-day lockdown.
No new cases as Queensland border shuts to travellers from greater Melbourne
By Matt Dennien
Queensland health authorities have detected no new cases of locally transmitted COVID-19 from more than 7000 tests, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has confirmed.
But two people who had recently returned from overseas and were staying in hotel quarantine were discovered to have the virus, as the state’s declaration of greater Melbourne as a hotspot took effect from 11.59pm AEDT yesterday.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.Credit:Nine
In an update posted to social media on Saturday morning, Ms Palaszczuk said 7597 tests had been carried out in the past 24 hours as contact tracers worked to reach some 1500 who had travelled into the state through Melbourne’s Tullamarine airport.
Acting Chief Health Officer Sonya Bennett said yesterday the decision to close the border for at least 14 days to greater Melbourne was to allow contact tracers to get started on working through those people.
Anyone who has been anywhere in Victoria on or since January 29 is required to complete a border declaration pass before entering Queensland, with penalties of $4000 for false information.
With the exception of a few limited groups, anyone who has been in the Victorian local government areas now declared hotspots since February 9 are barred from entering the state.
Queensland residents are allowed to return only via air and must undertake 14 days in hotel quarantine.
People in Queensland who have visited any of the exposure sites in greater Melbourne have been asked to get tested and isolate for 14 days, and those who have been in the region more broadly since February 5 must isolate until they receive a negative test result.
How Siobhan and Dean saved their wedding third time around
For those of us who can work from home, occupy kids close to home and didn’t have a huge weekend planned (or is that just me?!), Victoria’s five-day lockdown is more a pain in the backside than anything else.
But for small businesses, including the florists and restaurants planning for big Valentine’s Day events, or those with longed-for holidays planned, the headaches are infinite. Will there be refunds? What to do with unneeded food or produce? Will this be the straw that breaks a business’s back?
Not to mention the brides and grooms. But, as senior writer Wendy Tuohy writes, some found a way to beat the lockdown.
Bride Siobhan Hyland and groom Dean Casey re-arranged their wedding in hours on Friday after having each of their three attempts to schedule the big day were disrupted by Melbourne’s lockdowns. They tied the knot about 7pm.Credit:Chris Hopkins
Siobhan Hyland and Dean Casey are old hands at planning a wedding. In 2020 they chose their date, booked their venue and geared up their grand plans for matrimony, only to witness pandemic lockdowns blow up their big day – twice.
First they were to be married in April. Then in March as the nation’s original lockdown arrived, “it started looking ominous and the writing was on the wall,” says the bride. “We had to pull the pin about four weeks before.”
They rescheduled it to November and felt optimistic. “We were sort of judging how China and Italy were going and it seemed to be a bit more under control,” she says.
With the state’s intense second lockdown came the second, disappointing, cancellation of the wedding.
“Then we thought, ‘February [would be good], apparently the the virus is stronger in winter’. And it looked good until a week ago – but then it didn’t,” says Ms Hyland, who like her new husband is a public servant.
By the time Premier Daniel Andrews stood up shortly after 1pm on Friday to announce the state would go into lockdown a third time the couple had read the tea leaves and started making calls.
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2021-02-13 01:02:00Z
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