Summary
- Victoria’s five-day, hard lockdown has ended and greater Melbourne is no longer considered a COVID hotspot. Residents are now free to travel more than five kilometres from their homes and the four reasons for leaving home have been revoked, but some restrictions on public and private gatherings remain.
- Victoria has recorded no new local COVID-19 cases for the second day in a row, although one new case has emerged in hotel quarantine. NSW recorded no new local cases for the 31st day in a row on Wednesday and Queensland recorded its 41st straight day of zero cases.
- Debate rages among scientists over whether a nebuliser really was the source of Victoria’s Holiday Inn outbreak, as the Andrews government has suggested. Meanwhile, the man blamed for spreading the virus by using the nebuliser is pushing for an independent review of his case.
- More than 35,000 of Sydney’s frontline workers will roll up their sleeves to receive a COVID-19 vaccine within just three weeks from Monday.
- Visit our new vaccine tracker, which shows how many people around the world have been vaccinated so far and which countries are leading the charge.
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Crippling weather hampers vaccine distribution in the US
More on vaccine news, but turning our attention overseas, crippling snow storms in the US are hampering the country’s vaccination drive.
The icy blast has injected more confusion and frustration into the nation’s COVID-19 vaccination drive just when it was gathering speed, snarling vaccine deliveries and forcing the cancellation of countless shots around the country.
Across a large swath of the nation, including Deep South states like Georgia and Alabama, the snowy, slippery weather either led to the closing of vaccination sites outright or held up the necessary shipments, with delays expected to continue for days.
In New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio said doses expected this week were delayed by weather elsewhere in the country, forcing the city to hold off making 30,000 to 35,000 vaccination appointments.
AP
Check out our new COVID-19 vaccine data tracker
By Craig Butt
We have launched our new vaccine data dashboard, which tracks how many people around the world have been vaccinated so far and which countries are leading the charge.
Once vaccine doses start getting administered in Australia next Monday, we’ll be adding a pane to focus on local progress.
We’re going to keep continuously updating this new vaccine data centre – much like the virus data centre we launched last year.
Our tracker uses the total number of people fully vaccinated as our main metric of success rather than the number of doses administered. That means at the moment the dashboard somewhat understates the level of progress worldwide, because most vaccines require two doses at least one month apart to achieve their optimum efficacy and, as of today, the pace of progress worldwide means most people who have started their course have not yet received their second shot.
Global cases pass 109.8 million
The global tally of confirmed coronavirus cases, according to Johns Hopkins University, has passed 109.8 million.
More than 2.4 million people have died from COVID-19. But on a more positive note, more than 61.7 million people have recovered from the virus.
You can explore our data centre below:
Upcoming: Victorian COVID-19 update within the hour
We know you like to keep on top of Victoria’s daily updates, so here is a heads up: Health Minister Martin Foley and COVID-response commander Jeroen Weimar are due to give a coronavirus update at 10.30am AEDT.
We will bring you their press conference live, so do stay with us.
Melbourne’s CBD the morning after lockdown
My colleague Chloe Booker is in the CBD this morning and says the 96 tram from St Kilda was only half full at 9am.
Shops in Bourke Street Mall are yet to open, but a red “closing down” sign is a reminder of retailers’ struggles as city dwellers trickle past in low numbers, most still wearing masks despite them no longer being mandatory outdoors (when you can properly socially distance) from today.
Commuters are wearing face masks in the CBD as they make their way to work this morning. Credit:Scott McNaughton
Turning the corner onto Swanston Street, the foot traffic picks up towards Flinders Street Station as workers return to the office.
It’s far from the bustling city we once knew, but Melbourne is once again letting out a soft hum, Chloe says.
Revealed: No deal yet for boosted AstraZeneca doses
By Emma Koehn and Kate Aubusson
The head of AstraZeneca’s Australian operations says no agreement had been struck with the federal government to supply more than the 50 million doses already on order or on how much additional doses may cost as states and territories wait to learn what share of the vaccines they will receive.
The issue will be crucial if the AstraZeneca vaccine needs to be altered to boost its efficacy against more infectious virus variants.
The first vials of locally produced AstraZeneca vaccine at Seqirus/CSL in Parkville.Credit:Seqirus/CSL
In NSW, more than 35,000 frontline workers will receive their first doses of the overseas-manufactured Pfizer vaccine within three weeks from Monday.
Social distancing about to get harder on Sydney public transport
By Tom Rabe
Green dots on Sydney’s public transport will soon be irrelevant, as patronage approaches 70 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, meaning commuters will struggle to adhere to social distancing during peak hour.
The dots, implemented to ensure passengers were appropriately distanced, may only be useful during off-peak times, NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance says.
Mr Constance said the city’s network was “bouncing back” as people returned to work after months of dwindling patronage during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The NSW government is anticipating a surge in public transport patornage.Credit:Louise Kennerley
The number of people using Sydney’s public transport network reached 60 per cent of pre-COVID levels on Tuesday. The government is predicting double-digit increases across the network later in the week. Some recent weekdays have already surpassed 1.4 million trips, or more than 70 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.
Two per cent of the city’s services are pushing past the recommended social distancing measures, which are marked by green dots on trains and buses. Mr Constance said they would still be a useful guide during non-peak periods.
“It does remind people, particularly in the off-peak services, to go and sit on one and keep a bit of distance from people. Obviously its practicality in the middle of a peak service where everyone has come to the station at the same time, that’s a bit more problematic,” Mr Constance said.
Despite the green dots soon becoming redundant amid peak-hour services, Mr Constance said the government was not immediately going to change its public transport plan.
Immune system protects children from severe COVID-19, Australian study finds
By Melissa Cunningham
When Francesca Orsini noticed her daughter Beatrice had a runny nose last winter her thoughts turned to her family in Italy who were engulfed in a devastating coronavirus outbreak which had killed thousands.
“We got her tested and she came back positive two days later,” the 36-year-old Italian migrant said. “I was really scared. I couldn’t believe it was happening to us. We had seen what happened to our grandparents and parents back home and how terrible it had been for them.”
Francesca Orsini and Alessandro Bartesaghi with their children Beatrice (right) and Camilla (left). Credit: Justin McManus.
The day after Beatrice, then aged 5, was tested, Ms Orsini and her husband Alessandro Bartesaghi woke up with flu-like symptoms.
“We knew immediately that we had the virus too,” the biostatistician said. Their then one-year-old daughter Camilla also had the virus, despite not showing any symptoms before being tested.
For more than two weeks, Ms Orsini and Mr Bartesaghi were almost bedridden with extreme fatigue, fevers, headaches and muscle pain. They also lost their sense of taste and smell.
“Camilla had a slightly runny nose the day the test came back, but that was all,” Ms Orsini said. “Beatrice’s symptoms never really got worse either.”
Now, new research reveals infection-fighting cells in a child’s immune system rapidly target coronavirus, clearing the disease before it has a chance to take hold.
As part of an Australia-first study, researchers from the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute analysed blood samples from 48 children and 70 adults across 28 Melbourne households who had been infected with or exposed to COVID-19 during the state’s deadly second wave.
“What we found was that children are less likely to become infected with the virus and up to a third are asymptomatic, which is strikingly different to the higher prevalence and severity observed in children for most other respiratory viruses,” Dr Melanie Neeland, who led the research, said.
The researchers also identified that the children were likely being protected from severe COVID-19 because their innate immune systems – our first line of defence when we become infected with a virus – was quicker to attack the disease than an adult’s.
Accept risk: Tourism chief says Australians must live with virus
Tourism Australia managing director Phillipa Harrison has urged governments to accept a higher risk threshold of COVID-19 and learn to live with the virus as the travel industry nervously eyes the end of the JobKeeper wage subsidy in March.
Ms Harrison said governments must relax their strategy to adopt a higher risk tolerance of COVID.
‘We will only open up if we accept that there will be COVID in this community’ says Tourism Australia managing director Phillipa HarrisonCredit:Rhett Wyman
“Somewhere along the way it went to eradication and that was never the intention,” she told a travel industry symposium held by Nine, the publisher of this website, at the Sydney Opera House on Wednesday.
“I think we have a job to do to move public opinion from being that we must live in a COVID-zero environment to living in a COVID-normal environment where we live with this thing.
“Politicians are reflective of their constituents. They are listening to their medical advisors, but they’re also listening to public opinion.
“If constituents are happy living with a higher level of risk, then I think there would be more imprimatur for the states and for the federal government to be a little bit less reactive.”
Ms Harrison said vaccines would be important but they shouldn’t be viewed through the prism of eradication.
“The vaccines will only work ... [and] we will only open up if we accept that there will be COVID in this community,” she said.
Graph: Victoria’s daily testing numbers
The headline number in the Victorian Health Department’s daily COVID-19 update is always the number of new locally acquired cases, but the daily testing numbers were a key factor in ending this week’s lockdown.
Premier Daniel Andrews said Tuesday was “the biggest testing day we have ever had in the last 12 months”. Almost 40,000 Victorians were tested on Tuesday, 5000 more than on any other day during the pandemic.
The testing figure was still impressively high yesterday - 30,261 Victorians were tested.
And here’s a look at how local cases have been tracking since the beginning of the year:
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2021-02-17 22:39:00Z
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