Victoria COVID LIVE updates: Restrictions eased in Melbourne as state records one new local case; AstraZeneca vaccine recommendations changed - The Age

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As school holidays loom, we’re all watching other state cases and border restrictions a little more closely. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian is about to give a COVID-19 update. You can watch it live here:

A coronavirus outbreak in Sydney has NSW and Canberra on alert after three people have tested positive to the virus this week and a fourth can not yet be ruled out.

A primary school in north-west Sydney has now closed for in-person teaching after a number of its teachers attended a COVID-19 exposure site.

Yates Avenue Public School at Dundas Valley will instead hold classes online, a NSW Department of Education spokesperson said.

“The closure is precautionary as a result of staff having visited locations associated with a confirmed case of COVID-19,” they said.

“Those staff who are self-isolating and are well, will be working from home. NSW Education is supporting families who might arrive at school today to return home safely.”

Yesterday, it was announced a Baulkham Hills man in his 40s had tested positive to COVID-19, prompting venue alerts for locations at Northmead and Castle Hill.

The head of an esteemed vaccine research committee says the risk of blood clots after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine was still a “very rare outcome” for those aged between 50 and 59.

Terry Nolan, the head of the Vaccine and Immunisation Research Group at the Doherty Institute, said of the 60 clotting cases in Australia likely connected to the AstraZeneca vaccine, the TGA had reported only two deaths.

The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) recommended yesterday that those aged 16 to 60 years old receive the Pfizer vaccine, rather than AstraZeneca.

“On the balance of risks and benefits – even if you’re 50 and certainly if you’re older than that – [AstraZeneca] is still favourable,” Professor Nolan told Neil Mitchell on 3AW.

“So the recommendation from ATAGI is that if you’ve had the first dose you should go ahead and have the second dose.”

Professor Nolan, the former chair of ATAGI, said the clotting risks from COVID-19 vaccines like AstraZeneca are “nothing as severe as it was thought it was going to be”. But he said supply issues meant Australians could not be choosy.

“Everyone’s operating within this constraint of not enough vaccine. That, frankly, at the end of the day is our cold, harsh reality. We have just got to deal with that.

“The fundamental problem is we still don’t have enough vaccine to allow people to make choices. If we did, then probably, this would be a much less heated issue.”

State political reporter Annika Smethurst writes a weekly column for The Age. Today, as weary Victorians slowly emerge from yet another lockdown, she looks at the effects of them – and the political ramifications.

Concern about the Andrews’ government’s handling of the coronavirus is reflected in this week’s poll.Credit:Chris Hopkins

Politicians of all ilks will tell you that the only poll that matters is the one that happens on election day. But let me share a little secret. They’re lying.

There isn’t a politician in Canberra or on Spring Street who doesn’t obsessively watch opinion polls and use the results to justify leaders revolts or whip themselves into a state of crisis.

The latest survey results published in The Age this week dominated conversations inside the major parties as the results were dissect and spun to suit certain narratives.

The findings by Resolve Political Monitor revealed the Andrews government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic has come at a cost with Labor’s primary vote slipping six percentage points since the November 2018 poll – and Labor insiders confirm their own polling shows a similar trend.

Labor’s internal research shows the slip in support is what some are calling the torture effect whereby voters, particularly those heavily impacted by lockdowns, become more willing to turn their back on the government every time the state is sent back into lockdown.

The torture analogy comes from the fact that the most effective torture comes from a repeated routine of deprivation and despair. So every time the government enforces a new lockdown, voters are further deprived and eventually they lose hope, abandoning the government.

Labor believes that those 6 per cent of voters that have turned on the government since the last election are overwhelmingly found in outer-suburban Melbourne and are those people who are unable to work from home as their employment relies on the economy opening up.

“Labor is losing skin in these outer areas and if they keep locking us down, they will lose them for life,” one Labor party insider warned.

Read more here.

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.