Lockdowns brought temporary relief to some but, everywhere, test and trace is key
The first wave of coronavirus swept through a world unprepared. Authorities struggled to test for the disease, and didn’t know how to slow the spread of Covid-19.
Lockdowns brought the virus under temporary control in some places, including the UK, buying a window for the revival of education and the economy, and time to prepare for future waves that epidemiologists said were almost inevitable.
Continue reading...Protesters run through back streets in ‘chaotic scenes’ as further demonstrations expected on Sunday
Police have arrested 16 anti-lockdown protesters and fined 21 others during “chaotic” scenes in Melbourne’s south-east in which demonstrators were chased by police on horseback.
About 50 to 100 demonstrators began protesting at the State Library but moved to Elsternwick Park where they were pursued by police.
Continue reading...State’s chief health officer says it was ‘inappropriate’ to single out migrant community in Casey
Victoria’s chief health officer, Brett Sutton, has apologised for comments he made singling out Melbourne’s Afghan community in relation to a Covid-19 outbreak in Casey.
Sutton made the apology as the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, announced 21 new coronavirus cases and seven more deaths in the state on Saturday. It was the lowest number of new Covid-19 cases in the state since 24 June.
Continue reading...UK billionaire praises Emirates for flight as thousands remain stranded by policy to ease pressure on hotel quarantine
A tweet by Lord Sugar about his recent flight into Sydney has angered scores of Australians stranded around the world who themselves are unable to enter the country.
Australia’s federal opposition seized on the tweet on Friday amid accusations a controversial policy to ease pressure on Australia’s mandatory hotel quarantine system was unfairly penalising economy travellers stuck overseas.
Continue reading...New infections in Iran pass more than 3,000 a day again; deaths in France related to Covid-19 trend upwards for first time since lockdown
The US biotech company Moderna has announced that it expects to produce 20million doses of its experimental coronavirus vaccine by the end of the year, Reuters reports.
The announcement, made in a filing with US securities regulators, comes after Moderna’s chief executive, Stephane Bancel, told Reuters on Thursday that the company plans to seek emergency authorisation for the vaccine’s use in high-risk groups if it proves even just 70% effective.
Mark Rutte, the prime minister of the Netherlands, has said his government is preparing “regional” measures to combat the coronavirus outbreak, after the country registered 1,972 cases in the past 24 hours, Reuters reports.
Rutte said the Dutch situation was “worrying” after the country registered a record number of cases for the fourth consecutive day, with particular rises in major cities in the west of the country, including Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague.
At this rate, the number of infections would double every week and we absolutely cannot have that.
Continue reading...Queensland to reopen border to ACT residents from 25 September as national cabinet split over flight caps. Follow live
Victoria police have fined 76 people over the past 24 hours, including eight for not wearing a face mask.
Examples include three men “located in a carpark with no legitimate reasons for being there” and one man and one woman who drove from Tarneit to St Kilda East “to buy fried chicken”.
Queensland will re-open its border to people from the ACT from 25 September, the health minister Steven Miles has just announced.
Queensland has announced no new cases today.
Continue reading...NSW premier implores John Barilaro to stick to agreement after he refused to rule out further threats to dismantle the Coalition
The New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian, has made it clear she will not tolerate any further public posturing by the Nationals over koala habitat protections or new threats by the junior partner to leave the Coalition.
Berejiklian on Thursday also implored her Liberal colleagues to move on and refocus on their jobs following last week’s near split in the government, brought on by the Nationals leader, John Barilaro, threatening to move to the crossbenches with his MPs.
Continue reading...Czech Republic records 2,139 new cases; India reports world record one-day cases; Trump appointee to take leave after rant likening CDC scientists to ‘resistance’
The global economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic may take as much as five years, the World Bank’s chief economist Carmen Reinhart has said.
“There will probably be a quick rebound as all the restriction measures linked to lockdowns are lifted, but a full recovery will take as much as five years,” Reinhart said in a speech during a conference held in Madrid.
The Czech Republic has reported more than 2,000 new Covid cases in a single day for the first time as it battles a surge in infections that is among the fastest in Europe.
The health ministry recorded 2,139 cases of the new coronavirus on Wednesday, up from a previous record of 1,675 reported the previous day, Reuters reports.
Continue reading...Data offers hope as winter looms in north and raises viability of eliminating future flu pandemics
Health systems across the southern hemisphere were bracing a few months ago for their annual surge in influenza cases, which alongside Covid-19 could have overwhelmed hospitals. They never came.
Many countries in the southern half of the globe have instead experienced either record low levels of flu or none at all, public health specialists in Australia, New Zealand and South America have said, sparing potentially tens of thousands of lives and offering a glimmer of hope as winter approaches in the northern hemisphere.
Continue reading...Matt Wright – known as ‘the outback wrangler’ – came across the large reptile while clearing logs in a river path in the Northern Territory
For most people, the sight of an approaching crocodile, mouth wide open, would provide the fright of a life. And their fear would be rightly placed, as encounters between man and saltwater crocs typically have deathly ends for the former.
Not for Matt Wright, the so-called “outback wrangler”.
Continue reading...South Australia opens up to ACT and Brett Sutton gives evidence at Victoria’s hotel quarantine inquiry. Follow all today’s developments
The Australian National University has announced a restructure that will involve the loss of 465 positions.
Some 230 staff have already accepted voluntary separations, with a further 20 to come, but the ANU announced on Wednesday that there will need to be a further reduction of 215 positions.
All these cuts to Australia’s universities are going to have ongoing impacts for years
BREAKING: ANU has announced 230 staff have taken voluntary redundancies, another 20 are expected to follow in the coming weeks. ANU says Another 215 positions need to go as well. That is almost 500 jobs that will be lost at ANU due to #COVID19 #auspol @conorduffynews @abccanberra
Continue reading...South Australia opens up to ACT and Brett Sutton gives evidence at Victoria’s hotel quarantine inquiry. Follow all today’s developments
That’s it for our live coverage of coronavirus news and other developments in Australia. Thanks to Amy Remeikis for the earlier coverage. She’ll be back in the morning.
You can follow our global coverage here and there is a lot to follow. Outside Australia, the second wave is well and truly surging.
Australia’s cricket coach Justin Langer says he could “see the blood draining out of their faces” when his players were told about the quarantine periods in store for them in the coming months.
AAP reports the team was given the rundown ahead of tonight’s ODI series decider against England in Manchester.
Continue reading...‘It would go away without the vaccine,’ Trump says on ABC town hall. India’s total cases pass 5 million; Virus death toll linked to Maine wedding grows to 7; Follow the latest updates
Me, traveling abroad 10 minutes after getting the vaccine: pic.twitter.com/xe2odYxXBT
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said a vaccine against the deadly coronavirus could be three or four weeks away, underscoring predictions made by US public health officials and Pfizer Inc earlier this month, Reuters reports.
Trump, speaking at a town hall hosted by ABC News in Philadelphia, defended his handling of the coronavirus crisis, and said a vaccine could be ready for distribution soon.
“We’re very close to having a vaccine,” he said. “If you want to know the truth, the previous administration would have taken perhaps years to have a vaccine because of the FDA and all the approvals. And we’re within weeks of getting it you know could be three weeks, four weeks.”
1,542 new cases in Netherlands; Madrid accounts for a third of Spain’s caseload; Trump says ‘herd mentality’ will beat Covid virus
The average age of people infected with Covid-19 is coming down, according to a World Health Organization (WHO) expert, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove. She has told a Q&A that incidences of hospitalisation among those aged 15 to 49 years are increasing.
She also said it was possible for the same person to be infected with influenza and Covid-19, adding that the WHO was looking into the prevalence of that.
Earlier, we posted that the Czech Republic had reported its highest daily count since the beginning of the pandemic. The country’s health minister, Adam Vojtěch, has told its parliament the government plans to ban stand-up indoor events as of Friday to help stabilise the situation.
Inevitably the numbers in the coming days will be very similar to the current increases.
We have to calculate with that, although we are hoping for a certain decline or at least stabilisation from the measures adopted.
Continue reading...From Twitch streams to audiobook recordings, performers across the arts have had to find new ways to create – and new career avenues for the future
Hobart, Tasmania
Continue reading...Overall sales have fallen 20% between January and August but Audi sales have actually increased
New car sales in Australia have slumped since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, but one sector is bucking the trend – luxury brands.
Overall sales have fallen 20% as people have lost jobs and income, overseas factories have closed down and the recession has begun to bite.
Continue reading...Dutch infections rise by 1,379 in 24 hours; rise in cases in Denmark; global deaths pass 925,000 as cases near 30m
As cases continue to rise in the Netherlands, the Dutch government has said it will maintain heavy public spending in an effort to counter the losses from the pandemic despite its finances worsening.
In his annual speech outlining the government’s new budget on Tuesday, King Willem-Alexander said:
In these insecure times, the government chooses not to cut spending, but to invest, in job security, social safety nets and a stronger economy.”
New coronavirus cases in the Netherlands have hit a daily record of 1,379 in the past 24 hours, according to Dutch daily newspaper de Volkskrant.
On Monday, health authorities in the country recorded 1,300 new infections, it said.
Continue reading...NSW Firearms Registry officer didn’t read into allegations on police profile during an assessment for gun training permit, court told
A NSW Firearms Registry clerk who told investigators John Edwards’ police profile hadn’t “rung alarm bells” for her has been forced to admit she didn’t properly look at the profile.
An inquest was told on Tuesday the pensioner was granted a gun licence about a year before he murdered his estranged children, Jack and Jennifer Edwards, with a legally owned pistol in July 2018.
Continue reading...Health department had earlier requested list not be released, saying it could hamper care and put staff off going to work
The Australian government has begun releasing a weekly snapshot of Covid-19 deaths and infections in aged care homes, despite earlier attempting to keep secret the identity of providers with fewer than five cases.
The health department secretary, Brendan Murphy, had previously asked the Senate’s Covid-19 committee not to publish a full list of providers with outbreaks, claiming publication of the data could distract from care and discourage staff from attending work.
Continue reading...Cybersecurity experts concerned by possible intent behind use of big data to compile lists featuring everyone from low-key individuals to the royal family
The personal details of millions of people around the world have been swept up in a database compiled by a Chinese tech company with reported links to the country’s military and intelligence networks, according to a trove of leaked data.
About 2.4 million people are included in the database, assembled mostly based on public open-source data such as social media profiles, analysts said. It was compiled by Zhenhua Data, based in the south-eastern Chinese city of Shenzhen.
Continue reading...