Category Archives: Melbourne

Melbourne hotspot lockdowns announced as Victoria battles coronavirus outbreaks

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Residents of 10 postcodes ordered to stay at home from midnight on Wednesday

Ten Victorian postcodes will be back in lockdown from midnight on Wednesday and international flights coming into Melbourne will be diverted elsewhere, as the state struggles to get on top of Covid-19 outbreaks and community transmission.

On Tuesday the premier, Daniel Andrews, said a number of Victoria’s cases through late May and early June had been linked through genomic testing to an infection control breach in the hotel quarantine program, prompting him to call for a judicial inquiry.

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Victoria’s coronavirus spike: what’s causing it, and is anyone to blame?

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We ask health experts whether what we’re seeing in Melbourne is a ‘second wave’, and why it’s happening there

Victoria is experiencing a concerning rise in Covid-19 cases, with 75 new cases announced on Monday which were identified over the preceding 24 hours, one of the largest overnight jumps for the state since the pandemic began. For almost two weeks, the state has seen a double-digit rise in cases every day.

Many are now trying to identify a source of blame for the spread. According to the Australian, overly prohibitive lockdown laws implemented by the Victorian government early on in the pandemic were seen by the public as excessive given the low number of cases at the time. The report suggested this led some people to relax, and to question government warnings that they needed to keep socially distancing.

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Coronavirus Victoria: everything we know about Melbourne’s Covid-19 clusters

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The city is on a 10-day suburban testing blitz after premier Daniel Andrews revealed hotspots were largely caused by extended families

Melbourne has embarked on a 10-day testing blitz, aiming to test at least 50% of people in 10 suburbs.

This is due to problematic rates of community transmission of coronavirus in these areas, as well as persistent outbreaks and clusters.

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Coronavirus live news: US cases pass 2.5m as Australia considers new lockdown in Melbourne

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Cases approach 10m; new Covid-19 clusters across world spark fear of second wave; UK NHS will take four years to recover. Follow the latest updates

The UK needs to maintain “constant vigilance” as it eases out of lockdown, a former government chief scientific adviser has warned.

When outbreaks occur they typically occur in clusters and we’re seeing certain work environments, for example, food processing factories, as being fairly common places for those clusters to rise.

The common denominator is really being indoors, being crowded, being there for prolonged periods of time, noisy environments where people are coughing and shouting, and so there’s more droplet transmission.

The total number of people to die from Covid-19 in Russia has increased by 104 to 9,073, according to the country’s coronavirus response centre.

Russia on Sunday also reported 6,791 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, taking the nationwide tally to 634,437.

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Coronavirus live news: Egypt loosens lockdown despite surging infections as India passes 500,000 cases

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US records highest daily new infections; Brazil records nearly 47,000 new cases; Covid cases with unknown source rise in Melbourne. Follow the latest

The Dominican Republic’s Ministry of Health reported 855 new coronavirus cases on Friday, as well as six new deaths, bringing the country’s total number of infection cases to 30,619.

The Caribbean country’s death toll now stands at 718, according to health authorities.

A global fundraising meeting on Saturday raised€6.15bn ($6.9bn) from the United States, the European Commission and numerous countries to fight Covid-19, with many participants stressing that an eventual vaccine should be available to anyone who needs it.

The pledging summit, part of a joint initiative by the EU executive and advocacy group Global Citizen, also included a globally televised and streamed fundraising concert featuring Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, Shakira, Chloe X Halle, Usher and others.

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Victoria’s coronavirus spike: is this a second wave, and what’s causing the clusters?

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The state took swift action to contain Covid-19 but it is the site of 83% of Australia’s new cases. We examine why

While Victoria took swift action to contain the spread of Covid-19, the state is experiencing a concerning increase in virus cases. This is despite restrictions such as school closures and limits on the numbers of people in venues continuing longer than most other jurisdictions.

In the past week, 116 of Australia’s new cases – 83% of them – were reported in Victoria. It has also placed pressure on testing in some of the most affected council areas including Hume, Brimbank, Moreland, Darebin, Cardinia and Casey. Almost one in five Victorians live across these areas. For almost one week, new cases in double digits have been reported in the state, with the department of health on Monday announcing 16 new cases overnight.

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Australia coronavirus news: Victorians warned to avoid Melbourne hotspots amid fears of second wave – live updates

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Authorities ‘strongly discourage’ travel to and from six council areas that are home to most of the country’s new coronavirus cases. Follow live

Victoria has officially announced its new ministry.

Queensland has reported zero coronavirus cases overnight.

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Victoria to extend state of emergency for four more weeks after spike in Covid-19 cases

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Queensland declares southern state a ‘hotspot’ while South Australia reconsiders decision to reopen its border

The Victorian government has announced it will extend its state of emergency for at least four more weeks and ramp up its police enforcement of lockdown rules after a spike in Covid-19 cases.

The surge has also prompted neighbouring South Australia to reconsider its decision to reopen its border, while Queensland has declared all of greater Melbourne a Covid-19 hotspot.

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Ruby Princess passengers warned after crew member tests positive to tuberculosis

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Scientists prepare to examine sewage in attempt to try to find the source of a Covid-19 infection that killed Nathan Turner

Passengers on the ill-fated Ruby Princess cruise ship have been sent another warning from the New South Wales health department, that they could have been exposed to tuberculosis.

The Ruby Princess voyage that arrived in Sydney on 19 March is responsible for about 10% of all coronavirus infections in Australia, and the bungled management of the outbreak has sparked two separate inquiries.

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WA premier admits state was told of sick ship crew but criticises federal government email

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Mark McGowan says initial email from the agriculture department did not raise red flags about coronavirus

The Western Australian premier, Mark McGowan, has been forced to acknowledge that his state’s health department was notified of sick crew members on board a live export vessel before it docked in Fremantle, but remains critical of the federal Department of Agriculture for not “backing up” such a significant message with “at least a phone call”.

The admission came after the federal agriculture minister, David Littleproud, defended the actions of his department in response to McGowan’s claim on Tuesday that he discovered sick crew were on the ship Al-Kuwait that day only by word of mouth from dock workers. Littleproud released an email showing a department worker had notified WA Health on Friday about three sick crew members.

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BBC’s Andrew Cotter commentates penguin parade on Australia’s Phillip Island

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Voiceover narrates fairy penguin’s high-stakes waddle from shoreline to burrows in parade that used to attract thousands of visitors nightly

With live sport now a scarce resource, BBC commentator Andrew Cotter has lent his distinctive voice to the fairy penguins of Phillip Island.

He has narrated the birds’ nightly waddle back to their burrows, turning Victoria’s famous penguin parade into a high-stakes, long-distance race.

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Eastern Freeway crash: police arrest Porsche driver who fled scene after four Victoria police officers killed

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Porsche driver allegedly posted images to social media and fled after truck ploughed into four officers who had intercepted him

Police have arrested the Porsche driver who allegedly fled the scene of the accident that killed four Victoria police officers in Melbourne.

The crash happened on the Eastern Freeway at Kew about 5.40pm on Wednesday and is the biggest loss of police officer life in Victoria’s history.

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Australia coronavirus update live: Victoria extends state of emergency as travellers fly in from cruise nightmare – latest news

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Premier Daniel Andrews says state of emergency will be extended for a further four weeks as Australians trapped on Antarctic cruise ship arrive in Melbourne. Follow updates live

McGowan says he took his kids camping ... in his backyard ... over Easter because obviously other locations were unavailable.

And that’s the end of the press conference.

“We’ve successfully flattened the curve, but now we’ve got to figure out how to keep it there but also find out a long-term solution to the problem we face,” McGowan says.

He says he is working on getting commercial tenancy legislation in parliament this week. He’s not sure whether residential tenancy legislation will be ready this week but it will be brought in when it is.

The former will be brought into WA parliament for debate on Wednesday.

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Australia’s biggest cities eerily quiet as coronavirus fears mount – in pictures

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Shops and cultural institutions are closing their doors, workers are being asked to stay at home, and self-employed and casual staff are losing their jobs across the country. Here’s what’s (not) happening in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane after Scott Morrison banned non-essential indoor gatherings of 100 or more people and declared a human biosecurity emergency

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Coronavirus school closures: dozens of Australian private schools move to online learning

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New South Wales teachers union warns it is ‘impossible’ for schools to practise social distancing measures recommended by the government

Dozens of independent schools across Australia are going ahead with shutdowns as the New South Wales teachers union warns it is “impossible” for them to practise social distancing measures recommended by the government.

On Tuesday, Pymble Ladies College in Sydney joined dozens of private schools in Victoria when it announced it would move to online classes from Thursday.

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Melbourne professor quits after health department pressures her over data breach

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Vanessa Teague reported on a dataset of Medicare and PBS payments that was supposed to be anonymous but wasn’t

A prominent university professor has quit after the health department pressured her university to stop her speaking out about the Medicare and PBS history of over 2.5 million Australians being re-identifiable online due to a government bungle.

In 2016, Vanessa Teague, a cryptographer from the University of Melbourne, and two of her colleagues reported on a dataset, published on an open government data website by the federal government, of 2.5m Australians’ Medicare and PBS payment history dating back to 1984 that had supposedly been de-identified so people were anonymous.

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White Island volcano survivor out of coma and told of deaths of husband and daughter

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Australian victim Lisa Dallow awake in a serious but stable condition two months after New Zealand volcano erupted

An Australian woman has come out of her coma, two months after the volcano eruption on New Zealand’s White Island, to be told the blast killed her husband and daughter.

Adelaide woman Lisa Dallow has woken from her coma in Melbourne’s Alfred hospital and is in a serious but stable condition.

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Most of George Calombaris’s restaurant empire goes into voluntary administration

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Move follows underpayment scandal that resulted in staff being back-paid almost $8m in wages and superannuation

Celebrity chef George Calombaris has put much of his restaurant empire into voluntary administration.

Advisory and investment firm KordaMentha has been appointed as administrators of 22 companies in the Made Establishment Group, which KordaMentha says operates 12 restaurants and food venues in Melbourne.

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Wuhan coronavirus grown by scientists in Melbourne – video

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Scientists at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne have grown the novel coronavirus from a patient sample, which they plan to share internationally under advice from the World Health Organization to provide data to fight the virus.

The virus has also been grown in cell culture in China, but the breakthrough in Melbourne will allow accurate investigation and diagnosis of the virus globally. The project comes from a collaboration between the Royal Melbourne hospital and the University of Melbourne

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Huge hail batters Canberra as severe thunderstorms hit south-eastern Australia

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Hail smashes into Parliament House and brings down trees in the ACT, with heavy rainfall hitting NSW, Queensland and Victoria

Australia’s south-east has been lashed by severe thunderstorms and large hailstones that destroyed buildings and cars in Canberra and left two tourists in hospital after they were injured by lightning.

Two supercell thunderstorms brought hail and heavy rain to cities and towns across the east coast on Monday, battering the outer suburbs of Sydney about 3pm, with 4.5cm hailstones recorded and strong winds bringing trees down over cars in the Sutherland area.

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