Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Victoria recorded another 16 coronavirus deaths on Sunday as well as 279 new cases, as the premier Daniel Andrews expressed “cautious optimism” that the state’s harsh stage four restrictions were finally bringing the crisis under control.
“These numbers are heading in the right direction,” Andrews said. “They speak to a strategy that is working. At the same time, no one day necessarily guarantees the outcome – that is a long hard slog.”
NSW Health is advising of a new public health alert for Liverpool Hospital and Dooleys Lidcombe Catholic Club.
Peter Dutton had some things to say about the border closure between NSW and Queensland on the Nine network today:
When you get a premier like Annastacia Palaszczuk making announcements about border closures when Gladys Berejiklian is doing a press conference and she is caught out, the question is asked of her and she knows nothing about it, she hadn’t been contacted by Queensland, well you would imagine she would be a bit miffed. I think it is childish. There is a growing mood here in Queensland at the moment, I have got to say, Ally, of people who say if the doctors are saying close the borders or put in place this regime, fair enough, but there is a lot of politics being played in Queensland at the moment by the state government here in relation to this issue. You see brochures now going out into letterboxes in marginal seats and what not, and Annastacia Palaszczuk is walking a fine line here. People will be cynical if they think these decisions are being made for political reasons and her break down in the relationship with the New South Wales premier, particularly for those people who live in the Tweed or on the Gold Coast, is negatively impacting on those lives and businesses and it is unacceptable.
Victoria’s aged care crisis continues, with the department of health taking control of three more aged care homes due to Covid-19 outbreaks, as the state’s premier raises the hardship payments available to those who must forgo income in order to isolate after testing.
Victoria recorded 278 new cases of Covid-19 on Thursday, the lowest number for more than two weeks, with the number of total actives cases also dipping.
Staff at Estia’s Keilor Downs aged care home were tested four days after the company was told a worker had tested positive to Covid-19
Private sector aged care giant Estia is battling a third Covid-19 outbreak in Melbourne after two staff members and a resident tested positive at a facility in Keilor Downs.
The ASX-listed Estia is one of Australia’s largest providers and has been among the hardest hit by the pandemic in Melbourne, with two of its Victorian sites linked to 238 cases and both among the five largest aged care outbreaks in the state.
Wednesday marked Victoria’s most devastating day of Covid-19 cases and deaths, with a man in his 30s among 15 people who died overnight including many from aged care, and 725 new cases of the virus identified.
Three men and a woman in their 70s, three women and a man in their 80s, and a woman in her 90s were among the deaths. Twelve deaths were linked to outbreaks in aged care.
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.
Migrants drove more than a quarter of regional Australia’s population growth before the coronavirus pandemic forced border closures, AAP reports.
Treasury’s Centre for Population officials on Tuesday told a parliamentary inquiry that overseas migration was behind 26 per cent of regional population growth nationally.
A staff member at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) has tested positive for Covid-19, prompting the organisation to close all of its sites today.
In a statement, the ASRC said it closed all its sites this morning for terminal cleans and that staff would get “appropriate leave and full pay” for those who need to get tested or self-isolate.
Given the unprecedented pandemic impacting all our lives, we have been planning for this scenario for months.
We have taken early and swift action to close down all ASRC sites to protect staff, people seeking asylum and the community.
Health minister Greg Hunt promises ‘significant package’ for aged care but won’t commit to figure
Labor has launched a new campaign targeting the government over aged care funding, as the health minister, Greg Hunt, commits to delivering a “significant package” for the sector before Christmas.
Setting a deadline of 11 November when parliament returns, opposition leader Anthony Albanese said the “aged care, action now” campaign would gather signatures from across the country calling for immediate funding to address a crisis in the sector.
ACL director Martyn Iles says businesses should have greater powers to hire and fire, but denies Christians have a ‘special vendetta’ against LGBT people
The Australian Christian Lobby has backed calls for religious businesses such as aged care providers to gain more powers of hiring and firing employees who do not conform to religious teachings.
In a debate at the National Press Club on Wednesday the ACL director Martyn Iles backed calls from the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference for greater powers to fire employees who don’t conform to a “Christian sexual ethic” but claimed Christians don’t have a “special vendetta” against the LGBT community.
The head of the Earle Haven nursing home admits failings but claims government auditors were ‘anti-Semitic’
The boss of a Gold Coast aged care facility where more than half the high-care residents were malnourished before it closed has said he is “fed up” and is getting out of aged care.
Arthur Miller admitted to a Queensland parliamentary hearing on Friday that he was not up to the task of managing the high-care facility at his Earle Haven centre, which closed suddenly on 11 July, effectively leaving 69 residents homeless.
Aged care minister says he was disturbed by footage of elderly men being chemically and physically restrained
On the eve of the royal commission into the aged care sector’s first hearing, the Morrison government has flagged new regulations on the use of chemical and physical restraints in nursing homes.
There are no rules in Australia governing the use of restraints in aged care facilities, unlike the US, Britain and Europe.