Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Federal government may need to give financial aid to sustain Australia’s second biggest economy to limit flow-on effects throughout country
The strict new stage 4 lockdown announced by the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, along with the shutdown of certain industries to be unveiled on Monday, represents a hammer blow to the Australian economy.
They immediately invalidate federal Treasury forecasts released less than a fortnight ago and will require the prime minister, Scott Morrison, to tip buckets of money into Victoria if Australia is to avoid prolonging and deepening what is already an economic disaster.
The Australian state of Victoria has declared a state of disaster and placed Melbourne, the country’s second biggest city, under nighttime curfew as it grapples with hundreds of “mystery cases” of coronavirus.
As countries around the world including the US, the UK and Spain reimpose varying degrees of lockdowns, the Victorian premier announced that the state had to impose the highest level of restrictions in order to overcome a stubbornly high number of cases that cannot be traced.
We know we’re the cautionary tale that the rest of the country is scaring themselves with in order to keep 1.5 metres apart
The morale-boosting markers that were shared across Melbourne during the first lockdown have all but disappeared. Rainbows have peeled off fences, forgotten teddy bears are wedged between Venetian blinds and most of the chalk messages have long washed away.
“This isn’t like the first wave,” our chief health officer, Brett Sutton, said on the Saturday. By the Monday, with the daily presser citing our then record highest number of Covid cases at 532, and cement grey cloud obscuring the sun, Melbourne felt done in. Come Thursday, under a blue sky, with blossoms out and wattle blazing, Victoria clocked 723 – a number that winded the city. And now the fear is back.
A person in Orange, in regional NSW, has tested positive to Covid-19.
The person is a close contact with a known cluster in Sydney, Western NSW Local Health District chief executive Scott McLachlan said today.
The case is currently in isolation in the Orange Local Government Area, but has a residential address outside of the health district. The case is linked to a known cluster in Sydney.
The public health unit has contacted all close contacts. They have been provided with public health information which includes to be tested for Covid-19 and remain in isolation for 14 days.
There are currently 12 people with Covid-19 in hospital in NSW and eight in intensive care, with four of those people on ventilators. About 90 people are being treated for Covid-19 in non-acute, out-of-hospital care.
The AFL roadshow continues with a mini-hub to be created in Cairns, Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has confirmed.
Two yet-to-be named teams will base themselves in the city, and three games will be played at Cazaly’s Stadium. Strict quarantine protocols and the Covidsafe Industry Plan will be rigorously employed, as is the norm these days.
Three @AFL Premiership games will be played at Cazaly’s Stadium and two clubs will relocate to Cairns temporarily with strict quarantine protocols and the COVID Safe Industry Plan in place. It will inject millions of dollars into the local economy and support jobs. #AFL#qldjobspic.twitter.com/MiILnH1DjX
The Australian Education Union says that senior school students and specialist school students should also be allowed to move to flexible learning because of increasing rates of community transmission in Victoria.
More from AAP:
Year 11 and 12 students are being taught in the classroom ahead of exams, as are special school students.
AEU Victorian branch president Meredith Peace said the rigid approach meant some students were missing out and there was additional stress for principals, teachers and support staff.
Thirty-nine people were detained after police were attacked with “a hail of bottles” at an open-air party in central Frankfurt attended by thousands of youngsters, police in the German city said today..
Five officers were injured in the riot that began at around 3:00 am (0100 GMT) when police intervened to stop a brawl involving around 30 people in Frankfurt’s historic Opera square.
People who travel outside of Ireland have been warned they will invalidate their travel insurance even if the place they visit is on a so-called ‘green list’ of safe countries to by published this week, the Irish Times reports.
It added that travel insurance exclusions denying cover to people who travel contrary to official guides are the norm across the sector. At present, the advice from the Irish Government is that non-essential journeys overseas should be avoided.
Victoria has recorded 363 new Covid-19 cases and three more people have died as premier Daniel Andrews announced face masks will be made mandatory across Melbourne as the state attempts to control a second-wave outbreak of the virus.
At a press conference on Sunday, Andrews appeared wearing a face mask and said residents in metropolitan Melbourne and the Mitchell shire would be required to wear “masks or face coverings”, including bandannas or scarves in public from midnight on Wednesday.
Australia’s acting chief medical officer warns people in Sydney are not taking precautions ‘as seriously’ as in Melbourne
Victoria has recorded 217 new cases of Covid-19 and three more deaths, as the prime minister, Scott Morrison, announced parliament would be postponed due to the health risks of MPs travelling to Canberra from Melbourne and south-western Sydney.
Guardian Australia analysis and map shows how the pattern of Covid-19 has changed throughout Melbourne. Live data updates will track it as the lockdown continues
A Guardian Australia analysis of Victorian coronavirus cases shows that infections have been increasing in areas outside the locked-down postcodes, and that all significant growth areas are now contained within the wider Melbourne lockdown.
Using data aggregated daily from the dashboard of the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) here, we calculated the number of new cases a day for every local government area in Victoria.
Victoria has recorded another 216 cases of coronavirus and one additional death, a man in his 90s, as the state tries to contain the second wave of the virus that returned Melbourne residents to lockdown.
Thirty of the new cases are linked to known outbreaks and 186 are under investigation, with the state’s chief health officer, Brett Sutton, saying it was becoming more difficult to quickly trace the source of new infections.
Metropolitan Melbourne returned to lockdown on 8 July after Victoria recorded 191 new cases of coronavirus since the start of the week, which was at the time the highest daily increase since the pandemic began.
Guardian Australia’s Melissa Davey explains why the stage 3 stay-at-home orders were announced, how the latest lockdown has been met with a mixture of fury and acceptance, and whether this apparent second wave could have been avoided
Pop-up testing facility to be set up in Sydney hotel car park as Victorian premier says 37,588 tests were conducted in the state yesterday. Follow live news and updates
Victoria is preparing two-million reusable masks for people in Melbourne and Mitchell Shire by the end of July, and a million single-use masks, but in case you want to go and make your own now, you can find a CDC guide on how to make one here.
The Victorian government is going to prepare its own how-to guide for masks in the coming days.
Due to the heightened public health risk with the current outbreak in Victoria, we are asking ALL South Australians with symptoms (fever/chills, cough, sore throat, runny nose, shortness of breath, loss of taste or smell) to get tested for COVID-19. https://t.co/daEpRqXyQVpic.twitter.com/lccT3Rvwef
Easier because remote working routines have already been established and because, this time, we know what to expect. And harder, because we know what to expect.
Confusion over NSW-Victoria border closure as the state’s northern border closes for the first time in a century and Melbourne prepares for lockdown. Follow the latest news
Someone asks about some sort of foreign travel tax? I don’t know - there is a lot in the question, and it’s involving shiz that none of us can even think about until at least July next year, because I’m not sure if this is common knowledge or not - but Australia’s international borders ARE CLOSED.
Scott Morrison:
Well, there’s a lot of speculation on all those questions. So I don’t intend to engage in what is the normal budget speculation when you lead up to a budget.
Those matters will be addressed in the budget.
On what we are planning on doing with Hong Kong residents, Scott Morrison says:
We continue to be concerned about issues in Hong Kong as many nations are, and we have remained in close contact with other like-minded countries about this issue.
This is about how we, as a nation, are responding, domestically, to these issues.
On the issue of the broader shutdown of Melbourne - this is a matter that the Premier advised me of and, of course, based on their advice and the advice that I have received from the chief medical officer, then this was necessary.
I hope it isn’t for that long. I hope it’s for a shorter period as possible.
A record high of 191 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday has prompted the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, to reintroduce stage three restrictions across all of metropolitan Melbourne.
“I think a sense of complacency has crept into us as we let our frustrations get the better of us,” Andrews said. “I think that each of us know someone who has not been following the rules as well as they should have.
Melbourne’s Covid-19 spike has prompted the ‘unprecedented’ move to stop people coming into NSW from Victoria. We look at the details, from how to get a crossing permit to whether you need to self-isolate
Channel Nine initially promoted One Nation leader’s comments describing people locked down due to coronavirus as ‘drug addicts’ who ‘cannot speak English’
Channel Nine’s Today show has dropped One Nation leader Pauline Hanson as a “regular contributor”, after she described residents of public housing in Melbourne who are locked down due to Covid-19 as “drug addicts” who “cannot speak English”.
In a statement, the channel described her comments as “ill-informed and divisive”, and said “she will no longer be appearing on our program as a regular contributor”.
The World Health Organization has reported a record increase in global coronavirus cases with 212,326 being recorded in just 24 hours, amid a surge in the United States, Brazil and India.
The WHO’s situation report showed that just under 130,000 of those new cases were in the Americas, including the US, Brazil and Mexico, but the WHO said South-East Asia, including India stood at just under new 28,000 new cases on Saturday.
Scott Morrison was asked about Annastacia Palaszczuk’s comments about singling out Queensland on the Nine network this morning:
Well, I haven’t. There’s an election in Queensland, so I’m not surprised that the political rhetoric is amping up. Look, we’re keeping all of the country together to focus on this. I made similar comments about the changes in borders in South Australia yesterday. So, look, I think you can file that under a Queensland election.
Anthony Albanese was asked about Annastacia Palaszczuk’s comments yesterday, after she hit back on the border criticism (which included Scott Morrison) and said:
Well, look, I don’t believe that it’s appropriate, and I haven’t sought to politicise a response to the medical issues with regard to borders.
I’m not surprised that Annastacia Palaszczuk, who has shown tremendous leadership in Queensland, is frustrated at the comments of the Prime Minister given he has said time and time again it’s up to the states what happens.