Summary
- Victoria will return to harsher COVID-19 restrictions and up to 600 Australian Open players, officials and support staff have been told to isolate and get tested after a hotel quarantine worker tested positive to coronavirus on Wednesday. All tennis matches at Melbourne Park today have been called off.
- Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said in a late-night press conference on Wednesday that the state would return to mandatory masks indoors, would reintroduce caps on gatherings to 15 people in a household and would pause the 75 per cent return to work, scheduled to begin on Monday.
- Western Australia continues to face twin emergencies - a coronavirus lockdown and devastating bushfires - as Perth residents enter their fourth day of a hard five-day lockdown.
- NSW reached its 17th day without a case of community transmission on Wednesday, while Queensland clocked up 23 days without a locally acquired case.
- The federal government is working with the biotech industry on ways to establish large-scale mRNA vaccine manufacturing in Australia as a group of senior scientists work on a parallel plan to enable local production of the cutting-edge jabs.
Watch live: Victorian COVID-19 update
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, Health Minister Martin Foley and Police Minister Lisa Neville are due to hold a press conference at 9.30am AEDT. You can watch their press conference live, below:
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Victoria scrambles to open new testing sites
By Ashleigh McMillan
Premier Daniel Andrews sympathises with people waiting in long queues for a COVID test this morning but says there is “no other way” to root out any potential cases.
A new COVID-19 testing site will be opened in Noble Park, where the 26-year-old hotel quarantine resident support worker who tested positive on Wednesday lives.
The queue for testing at Springers Leisure Centre in Keysborough.Credit:Joe Armao
Mr Andrews said he was “pleased to see a strong response in the south and south-east” but encouraged people to check the Department of Health website to find sites with shorter wait times.
“Yes, there will be delays, there is no other way around it, it has got to be done meticulously,” he said.
“We cannot have people stampeding through those bases, it must be done slowly, meticulously. I don’t want a testing site to become a super spreading site. It has to be done very carefully.”
Victoria’s COVID-19 response commander, Jeroen Weimar, apologised for the delays but said the state government was setting up at least four additional testing sites today and was working to increase capacity in Clayton, Brighton and in the CBD.
“We would ask you to check before you go to the site that you want to go to to make sure that the queues there are not excessively long,” he said.
“We will ensure the testing capacity is there today, tomorrow, over the weekend and as long as is necessary to run this particular outbreak to ground.
“We know this virus is wildly infectious. We know it is still now an issue for us to deal with yet again. We will, as the Victorian community, deal with it in the same way we always do – acting swiftly and promptly.”
Daily wastewater testing will now occur in Melbourne’s south-east water catchment.
Mask rules in Victorian schools
As we mentioned earlier, Victorian primary school students are not required to wear masks at school. But high school students are required to wear face masks.
This is the latest message from Victorian Education Minister James Merlino:
Authorities still trying to reach close contact of Victorian hotel worker
By Ashleigh McMillan
Two family members of the COVID-infected hotel quarantine worker in Victoria have tested negative, but authorities are still trying to track down one of the worker’s 20 close contacts.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews confirmed the 26-year-old hotel quarantine worker from Noble Park in Melbourne’s south-east has 20 close contacts who are family and friends, while “many, many hundreds” of other people have also been identified as contacts.
The hotel quarantine worker last worked at the Grand Hyatt on January 29 and was tested at the end of their shift, returning a negative result. He tested positive on February 2.Credit:Paul Jeffers
“He has 20 close primary contacts. We have been able to contact, speak with and give direction to 19 of those 20, so that is a very quick response. We will find that 20th person throughout the day and put a public health response around that person,” Mr Andrews said on Thursday.
“I can, in good news though, indicate the overnight testing of the 26-year-old Noble Park man’s close family contacts, family members he lives with and has spent time with, those two tests have come back negative, so that is very positive news. It’s early stages, [but] that is positive news.”
Mr Andrews said health authorities had reviewed CCTV footage from the Grand Hyatt hotel, where the man worked, and they could find “no problem, no breach of protocol or anything of that nature in terms of his employment”.
“We have reviewed literally days of CCTV footage, and this person ... has been a model employee. Whether it is doffing and donning [personal protective equipment], all the protocols, all the other rules that are followed up.
“Of course he has provided us with very detailed accounts of where he has been as well as any other information that we have needed. We are very grateful to him.”
Where to get tested in Victoria
Here is another fantastic table from our graphics guru Jamie Brown. You can check the wait times at these testing sites via the Department of Health website, here.
Minister calls for Craig Kelly to delete controversial posts, which remain on Facebook
By Natassia Chrysanthos
Federal Immigration Minister Alex Hawke says fellow Coalition MP Craig Kelly should remove his Facebook posts promoting misinformation about COVID-19 treatments and vaccinations.
Mr Kelly’s most recent Facebook post about COVID-19 was shared on February 2. It is an image promoting claims that hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin should be used to treat the virus, which is counter to Australian health advice.
It has been liked by 6300 users and shared 1800 times. That post, and earlier posts on the same topic, are visible on Mr Kelly’s Facebook page.
Liberal MP Craig Kelly during Question Time at Parliament House in Canberra on Wednesday.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
“Any advice on anybody’s social media that says vaccines are dangerous, from any government official at any government level, shouldn’t be there,” Mr Hawke said on Sky News this morning.
“Obviously they [posts that contradict official health advice] should be taken down.”
Mr Kelly, who has drawn criticism for sharing disputed claims about COVID-19, seemed to back down from his views yesterday. He issued a statement in support of vaccinations after a confrontation with Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek, who told him he was putting public health at risk, and a meeting with Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
Mr Hawke said Mr Kelly had committed to ensuring there was no misinformation promoted on his channels. “I welcome the statement from my colleague Craig Kelly yesterday… that he rejects disinformation and he’s committing to make sure there is no disinformation coming from him about vaccinations,” he said.
Mr Kelly has not posted the statement he made after yesterday’s meeting with the Prime Minister to his 95,000 Facebook followers, nor has he removed the posts with disputed claims.
One coronavirus testing site closes, two-hour wait times at others
By Ahsleigh McMillan
Melburnians are turning out in droves to get tested for COVID-19 this morning, but long wait times are frustrating those in queues, while others are being turned away.
One testing site in Melbourne’s south-east has already closed due to high demand, with the Department of Health warning some other testing facilities have wait times of more than two hours.
Springers Leisure Centre testing site in Keysborough has closed.Credit:Nine News
According to callers to Melbourne radio station 3AW, there were more than 100 cars lined up at Keysborough’s Springers Leisure Centre site before it opened at 7.45am AEDT. The site has now closed its gates.
There are also lengthy wait times at the following testing sites:
- Golfers Drive testing centre in Chadstone: 130 minutes
- Wantirna Swinburne University: 120 minutes
- Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre: 90 minutes
- Banyule Community Health in Greensborough: 90 minutes
- Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital: 60 minutes
- Darebin Arts Centre: 60 minutes
- Wantirna Health’s Wantirna Trash and Treasure Market: 60 minutes
- Shorten Reserve Car Park: 45 minutes
- Montague Street testing site in South Melbourne: 45 minutes
You can find up-to-date details on which testing sites are experiencing delays on the Department of Health website.
A map of Melbourne’s exposure sites
As you can see below, the coronavirus exposure sites in Melbourne are concentrated in the city’s south-east. The majority are located in the Greater Dandenong council area.
Victorian Opposition Leader says remote quarantine facilities should be ‘explored’
By Paul Sakkal
Victorian Opposition Leader Michael O’Brien says the state’s latest hotel quarantine leak should spark a conversation about whether it is feasible to establish quarantine facilities for returned travellers away from major population centres.
Mr O’Brien, who supports the government’s stricter public health restrictions, said it could be difficult to find staff for the remote facilities, but the option should be “explored” in order to reduce the risk of COVID-19 seeping into the community.
Liberal Opposition Leader Michael O’Brien.Credit:Scott McNaughton
He said the government also needed to make a call as soon as possible on whether crowds could safely attend the Australian Open.
Mr O’Brien there should not be a repeat of last year’s Melbourne Grand Prix which was cancelled within hours of it beginning, as thousands of fan were waiting at the gates.
“We need to put a fence around this outbreak. We can’t afford another wave,” he said, as he urged Victorians to get tested if they have any symptoms.
“This is how it started last year. The government said they learnt their lesson ... that they were gold standard this time. We need to understand what went wrong and how it went wrong.”
Upcoming: Victorian COVID-19 update
We know you like to keep on top of these things, so here is a heads up about today’s Victorian COVID-19 press conference.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, Health Minister Martin Foley and Police Minister Lisa Neville are due to hold a press conference at 9.30am AEDT.
I suspect we’re going to be back to “daily Dan” while this quarantine breach plays out.
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2021-02-03 23:00:12Z
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