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Victoria has recorded one new local case of coronavirus as restrictions are eased across the state.
Health authorities have confirmed the new case is a primary close contact of an existing case.
There was also one new COVID-19 case in hotel quarantine.
And Victorians have clearly listened to health authorities and lined up in their droves to get tested: 35,252 test results were processed yesterday.
There are now 54 active COVID-19 cases across the state.
Only a quarter of nearly 38,000 fines handed to Victorians for breaches of coronavirus restrictions have been paid.
Victoria Police said on Thursday that 37,939 fines had been issued since the beginning of the pandemic early last year, and only 25 per cent had been paid.
Police and ADF personnel at a checkpoint on Melbourne’s outskirts in July last year.Credit:Luis Ascui
About 2000 people have chosen to challenge their fine in court, while another 2000 fines have been withdrawn after review. The bulk of the unpaid fines – about 25,000 – are with Fines Victoria for enforcement.
The surge in the number of public health order breaches related to the pandemic was revealed in the quarterly crime statistics released on Thursday. The figures cover the year to March 31.
Australia and New Zealand were right to ban flights from China at the first sign of the pandemic last year, despite objections from the World Health Organisation and Beijing.
That is the view of former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark who co-chaired the international expert panel that spent a year investigating the coronavirus outbreak.
She said that the WHO was wrong to oppose the “absolutely essential” travel bans first introduced on flights from China, and then extended to Europe and the rest of the world as the pandemic spread from Wuhan where the virus was first detected.
Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark led the independent investigation into the coronavirus.Credit:Kate Geraghty
“We did that even though it was against the advice of the WHO and the international health regulations which discourage constraints on travel,” she said.
The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response co-chair made the forceful comments to the Australian-based Rekindling Hope podcast hosted by opposition frontbencher and former treasurer Chris Bowen and former Labor candidate Sam Crosby.
Bowen, who was the opposition’s health spokesman at the time, said the organisation’s objection to Australia’s travel ban, was “extraordinary”.
“I remember the Chinese government was using that as a leverage point to argue that there shouldn’t be travel bans on China because the WHO hadn’t called for them,” Bowen recalled.
“I had one meeting with the Chinese ambassador where he made the point and we had to push back and say ‘no we support the government’s decision’,” he said.
As Melbourne’s coronavirus crisis eases again (fingers and toes crossed!) it’s ramping up again up north.
Health authorities have revealed a Sydney man who tested positive to COVID-19 travelled to Canberra and visited a busy exhibition while possibly infectious.
The 40-year-old man’s test results showed low virus levels which NSW Health has not been able to rule out as a possible case.
Canberra’s National Gallery of Australia has been listed as a potential COVID-19 exposure site.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
The man attended the National Gallery of Australia’s Botticelli to Van Gogh exhibition on Monday, June 14 between midday and 1.45pm. He also went to the Via Dolce Pasticceria restaurant between 2.45pm and 3.15pm on the same day.
Anyone who visited those locations at those times must immediately isolate until advised further by ACT Health and get a COVID-19 test.
“In addition, if you were at the National Gallery of Australia, including the main gift shop, from 12 to 2pm on Monday 14 June, you must be vigilant for even the mildest of COVID-19 symptoms, immediately get tested and isolate until a negative test is received,” ACT Health said in a statement.
All walk-ins for Pfizer inoculations were halted at Victoria’s mass vaccination hubs this week, with the Andrews government saying its supplies were running short.
The Commonwealth has disputed the state’s claims, while the Victorian government has maintained it cannot keep up with the rate of demand at the current level of supply. So what is really going on?
People wait to be vaccinated at Melbourne’s Royal Exhibition Building.Credit:Getty
There has been an increased demand for vaccines since the City of Whittlesea COVID-19 cluster emerged in late May, and the Andrews government rolled out Pfizer to Victorians aged in their 40s from May 28.
That means people who received their first shot of Pfizer around that time are due for their second dose, and this is creating a vaccine crunch. Australia’s expert immunisation panel is now recommending AstraZeneca should be given to people over the age of 60 – up from the earlier recommendation of 50. This is set to further strain the vaccination rollout.
Under the Commonwealth’s vaccine rollout program, the federal government was initially providing 71,000 Pfizer doses a week to Victoria – about half were to be used as first doses, and the other half as second doses. When it provided a temporary uplift in late May, Victoria’s Pfizer allocation was raised to 105,000 every week for three weeks (until July 5).
On May 26, the federal government also announced Victoria would receive a one-off additional 150,000 doses of vaccine on the condition the state used all the jabs, and, crucially, caught up on its schedule for second doses.
While a significant amount of the weekly allocation was meant to be given as first doses, the Commonwealth believed most would be given to people due for their second doses and would get the state back in sync with its first and second dose schedule.
It appears the state government continued administering first doses and the already out-of-sync first and second-dose schedule was knocked further off course as demand for the vaccine increased and thousands of people turned out to get vaccinated.
Melburnians planning to flee the city after the 25-kilometre travel limits were scrapped at midnight have been warned not to enter closed parks and forests damaged in last week’s wild storms.
A spokeswoman for the State Control Centre (SCC) urged travellers to avoid flood and storm affected areas this weekend. Many roads are still closed as emergency services remove fallen trees and repair damaged electricity infrastructure.
The storms that wrought damage across the state last week have left thousands without power.Credit:Joe Armao
Travel between Melbourne and regional Victoria is permitted again for the first time in three weeks after a coronavirus restriction requiring Melburnians to stay within 25 kilometres of their home except for essential travel was lifted overnight.
The SCC confirmed that five Australian Defence Force members would spend today providing logistical and planning support for emergency services in Gippsland and the Dandenongs.
Electricity distribution company AusNet has told customers in the Dandenongs they should prepare to remain without power for three more weeks. The provider reported this morning that 5100 homes were still without power.
Yesterday, the Victorian government announced a hardship payment of up to $1680 per week for eligible households who had been without power from June 17.
Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt has this morning backed the decision to raise the recommended age for the AstraZeneca vaccine from 50 to 60.
“It was a difficult decision, but it was the right decision,” Mr Hunt said on the Today show a short while ago.
“We had very clear medical advice from the people who’ve helped keep us safe. In a world of 2 million lives lost, agonisingly, this year we’ve had no lives lost to COVID for people who have caught it in Australia and we’ve done that by following the medical advice.”
Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Mr Hunt said the federal government was increasing the supply of Pfizer as a result of the changes.
“We will build [up] to 1300 GP clinics by the end of July that are supplying Pfizer and then over the coming months, we’ll increase that again, in particular in October, for [the] last three months and possibly September if we can have supplies brought forward.
“Over the course of the year, we’ll have 40 million units and I confirmed that again yesterday with the country’s head of Pfizer.”
The Victorian government’s contact-tracing QR code system has processed almost 79 million check-ins, up from 37 million just three weeks ago, but experts say the code is poorly designed and could lead to unnecessarily slow and frustrating user experiences.
The government’s QR code system has been mandatory for many businesses since the end of May, after surveys showed less than half of people reported checking in when they arrived at a venue. It replaced a constellation of separate systems.
The government says its system uses complex coding to provide security and prevent fraud. It says use of the service has increased dramatically in the past month.
A customer scans a QR code at Woolworths in Preston. Credit:Justin McManus
However, experts say the system is much more complex than it needs to be, producing QR codes that are slower to scan and will sometimes not scan at all if the image is not ideal – for example, if it is behind dirty plastic, or there is a reflection.
Codes generated by other states are much smaller and faster.
Melbourne-based software developer Nick Moore described Victoria’s codes as “vast overkill” and “behemoth”. “It’s pretty huge, and as a result not that easy to scan,“ Mr Moore wrote on his website.
Dr Shaanan Cohney, a cyber-security lecturer at the University of Melbourne, described Victoria’s QR code design as unnecessary.
“There are definitely elements of this that are wasteful.”
A nurse who caught COVID-19 while working in a coronavirus ward at Epping Private Hospital also worked two shifts at the nearby Northern Hospital while infectious, prompting Victoria’s COVID-19 response commander to say he was “exceptionally concerned and disappointed” the nurse was allowed to work at more than one site.
While Victoria recorded no new COVID-19 infections on Thursday, the third “doughnut day” in the past week, NSW’s outbreak grew to three or possibly four cases.
In the first recent instance of community transmission in NSW, the third case – a woman in her 70s – visited a cafe in Sydney’s eastern suburbs at the same time as the positive case at the centre of the cluster, a driver who transported international aircrew and that tested positive on Wednesday.
A nurse worked two shifts at the Northern Hospital while infectious with COVID-19.Credit:Eddie Jim
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has not imposed additional restrictions, but warned residents of Sydney’s east to be on high alert, wear masks indoors and avoid gatherings.
The new cases in Sydney have prompted Victorian health authorities to designate parts of the city orange zones under the state’s travel permit system. Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said on Thursday evening that Victorians intending to visit the local government areas of the City of Sydney, Waverley and Woollahra should rethink their plans.
Queensland has banned people living in Greater Melbourne from entering for another seven days after the hotspot declaration for the city was extended.
Doctors warn over 50s are cancelling their appointments to get second doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, despite health experts urging people to get fully vaccinated as the risk of the rare clotting disorder is much lower for second doses.
The locally made vaccine is now only recommended for people aged 60 and older after the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation altered its advice following the latest vaccine safety report.
That report found seven of the 12 new cases confirmed last week of a rare blood-clotting disorder linked to the vaccine were in people aged 50 to 59. Last week, a 52-year-old woman died after experiencing a severe case of blood clotting from the vaccine.
Rodney Shave says he will not be going back for a second dose of AstraZeneca.Credit:Simon Schluter
Chief Medical Officer Professor Paul Kelly said the cases in 50 to 59-year-olds changed the risk profile for that group, with the risk now outweighing the benefit.
“For those aged between 40 and 59 now, Pfizer vaccine will be made available,” he said.
However, for those who had received a first AstraZeneca dose he said it was important to go back for their second.
“Anyone who has had a first dose of AstraZeneca without a problem should feel very confident to have their second dose and they should keep that booking,” Professor Kelly said.
Data from the UK shows the rare clotting syndrome was far less common for second doses, occurring at a rate of about 1.5 per million doses across all age groups, compared to a rate of 2.7 per 100,000 doses in the 50 to 59 age group.
Rodney Shave, 53, sought out the first dose of AstraZeneca over worries that he might be more vulnerable to coronavirus if he caught it due to a health condition.
The Melbourne man said he won’t be going back for the second dose, and is now weighing whether he can, or should, try and get the Pfizer vaccine as his second dose instead.
“I feel cheated that it’s coming out that it’s really only suitable for people over 60 because people are getting blood clots and things like that,” he said. “I’m very apprehensive about getting the second one.”
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2021-06-17 22:41:01Z
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