Category Archives: Coronavirus

Steven Marshall eases South Australia Covid lockdown, saying one person lied to contact tracers – live news

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South Australia reports three new cases in quarantine and lifts many lockdown restrictions. No new locally acquired coronavirus cases in NSW or Victoria. Follow live

If you’re still confused about what happened in South Australia, Josh Taylor has stepped it out in this report. He writes:

The state’s premier, Steven Marshall, made the admission after contact tracers further investigated a male with Covid-19 who claimed to have only picked up a pizza from the Woodville Pizza Bar.

A security guard who tested positive from the Peppers medi-hotel for returned travellers had a second job at the restaurant, and because the person claimed to have just been a customer, health authorities feared a wide range of people may have been exposed to Covid-19 through casual transmission at the pizza bar.

Related: South Australia to end Covid lockdown early as premier 'fuming' over pizza lie

To Tasmania now, where a Hobart man in possession of enough fake luxury watches to keep Australia Post in bonuses for decades has been arrested by the Australian federal police.

More from AAP:

More than a thousand fake luxury watches and pieces of jewellery, a deceptive passport and 4000 steroid tablets have been seized by police from a man’s house in Hobart.

The 49-year-old is facing a string of criminal charges, including making false travel statements, after the Australian Federal Police raid this week.

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Women have long been the leaders in Navajo culture. Now they’re steering the fight against Covid

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Ever since coronavirus arrived on the Navajo Nation, women in this matriarchal society have put themselves at risk, taking on more responsibilities, culturally and in everyday life

Sitting in the passenger seat of her husband’s pickup truck just before dusk, Eugenia Charles-Newton watched a young Navajo girl, her niece, at a traditional kinaaldá ceremony in Shiprock, New Mexico.

The coming-of-age ceremony was unlike any other kinaaldá she’d seen. Scores of family members were missing and there was only a small cake, just enough to feed the immediate family. That morning, the girl’s female relatives hadn’t gathered to sing and tell stories as they mixed the cake batter. When the girl ran toward the east before the sun rose, she didn’t have throngs of relatives running behind her to fill the dawn air with happy screams and shouts, celebrating her transition into womanhood. Only the young woman’s brothers ran after her.

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South Australia to end Covid lockdown early as premier ‘fuming’ over pizza lie

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Steven Marshall says state would not have gone into six-day lockdown if it had been known man had worked at Woodville Pizza Bar

South Australia’s six-day lockdown will end three days early at midnight on Saturday after it was revealed a male who tested positive for Covid-19 had lied to contact tracers over working in a pizza bar where another case had worked.

The state’s premier, Steven Marshall, made the admission after contact tracers further investigated a male with Covid-19 who claimed to have only picked up a pizza from the Woodville Pizza Bar.

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Dr Fauci allays Covid vaccine development speed concerns, reiterates public health measures – video

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Dr Anthony Fauci speaks at the coronavirus task force press briefing, marking his first appearance at the White House podium in months. The infectious disease expert has moved to allay concerns about the speed with which the coronavirus vaccine has been developed, and implored Americans to continue basic public health measures until it is rolled out

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Cut off for nine months, Pacific atoll conservationists emerge to Covid pandemic

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Isolated from the rest of the planet since February, group learned about virus sweeping the globe but have escaped its impact – until now

In February, just as the coronavirus pandemic began to take hold, four people set sail for one of the most remote places on Earth — a small camp on Kure Atoll, at the edge of the uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

There, more than 2,200km from Honolulu, they lived in isolation for nearly nine months while working to restore the island’s environment.

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California enacts coronavirus curfew for majority of state’s 40m residents

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Governor Gavin Newsom announced the stay-at-home order for all non-essential work and gatherings from 10pm to 5 am

California is imposing a curfew affecting nearly all of its 40 million residents beginning this weekend, as the state tries to control a surge in coronavirus cases.

The state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, announced what officials are describing as a limited stay-at-home order on Thursday, saying that all nonessential work and gathering must stop from 10pm to 5am. The order will apply to the 41 counties currently in the most restrictive tier of reopening rules, which accounts for 94% of the state’s 40 million residents.

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Coronavirus is evolving. Whether it gets deadlier or not may depend on us | Laura Spinney

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There’s now evidence that ignoring social distancing rules could help more lethal strains of Covid-19 to win out

Letting the virus that causes Covid-19 circulate more-or-less freely is dangerous not only because it risks overwhelming hospitals and so endangering lives unnecessarily, but also because it could delay the evolution of the virus to a more benign form and potentially even make it more lethal.

Though the data is still sketchy and the measures crude, this effect may already be influencing the difference in death rates between Sweden – which took a relaxed approach to containment until recently – and Norway, whose measures have been much stricter. Sweden has more than three times as many deaths per 100 cases as its neighbour.

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Trump rails against election defeat as US Covid deaths top 250,000 – live

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Former official in the George W. Bush administration Matt Becker has a blunt message for General Services Administration (GSA) Administrator Emily Murphy today. She’s the person who has so far failed to sign the documents to begin the official transition process to a Biden-Harris administration. Becker writes this morning:

When you serve in the executive branch, you are required to take an oath of office on your first day. Your oath is not to the president of the United States but to the Constitution and the American people. When Emily accepted this leadership role, she also accepted the responsibility to make the tough choices. This is one of those times.

Make no mistake, I absolutely want the Trump campaign to expose fraud, if it is there. As a father, small business owner and lifelong Republican, I do not want a Joe Biden presidency. I simply do not agree with Joe Biden on how to move America forward. But, as an American, I know elections have consequences and my support of our Constitution outweighs my distress at who will be in the Oval Office.

New claims for unemployment benefits in the US rose to 742,000 last week. It is the first increase since early October, as a surge in coronavirus cases keeps a tight check on the US economic recovery.

More than 21 million Americans are currently claiming some form of unemployment insurance.

Even with news of two promising vaccines, the consumer spending that powers the nation’s economic growth could shrivel amid extended business closures.

While the holiday season traditionally brings enormous sales volume for retailers, restaurants, and movie theaters, many are facing a challenging season. Travel is at a near-standstill, consumers’ wallets are already tightly squeezed, and extended pandemic unemployment assistance is set to expire by the end of December.

The economic pain from the coronavirus pandemic continues. The U.S. Department of Labor just reported that another 742,000 unemployed Americans filed for first-time unemployment benefits just last week. Meanwhile, there’s still no badly needed Covid-19 economic stimulus package.

Red flag: 4.4 million Americans are receiving "Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation," up from 1.4 million in August.

That's the program for people who have been unemployed for months and exhausted their regular UI.

**It will end on Dec. 26 if Congress does not act** pic.twitter.com/tzDRIbW2tE

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Coronavirus live news: Russia exceeds 2m cases; Danish mink Covid mutation ‘most likely extinct’

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Russia passes landmark number as 23,610 new cases reported; Denmark says no further cases of mutation since mid-September

The UK will be urged to reconsider its opposition to waiving intellectual property rights for Covid-19 vaccines and treatments at a World Trade Organization meeting on Friday, a move that would allow mass production of treatments and inoculations against the disease and could significantly shorten the length of the pandemic, campaigners say.

India and South Africa have proposed that WTO member states be allowed to waive patents and other intellectual property (IP) rights on any treatments and tools related to Covid-19 until the end of the pandemic, including for the Moderna and Pfizer/BionNTech vaccines that are set to be approved for use in the coming weeks.

Related: UK faces calls to drop opposition to patent-free Covid vaccines

More mink mutation news: a number of cases of Covid-19 have been found in people who work in the mink industry in Sweden.

In a statement the Swedish Public Health Agency said it and “the Swedish Veterinary Institute, the Swedish Board of Agriculture and local infection control units are jointly investigating whether there is any connection between the cases and their contact with minks.”

Flera myndigheter utreder fall av covid-19 inom minknäringen. https://t.co/TRDin3ZZHG

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Pandemic could lead to profound shift in parenting roles, say experts

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Men are spending more time with their children and businesses are seeing economic benefits of flexible working

The year 2020 has been transformative for how society sees fatherhood, and could produce the most profound shift in caring responsibilities since the second world war, according to researchers, business leaders and campaigners.

Research has shown that while women bore the brunt of extra childcare during the initial coronavirus lockdown and are being disproportionately impacted by the economic fallout, there has been also a huge surge in the number of hours men are spending with their children.

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Coalition paves way for scrapping planned rise in superannuation guarantee

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Retirement income review to emphasise Australians using ‘voluntary savings’, saying a lift in compulsory super rate would hurt wages growth

The Morrison government is laying the groundwork to scrap the already legislated increase to the superannuation guarantee, declaring the retirement income review has found current policy settings are suitable.

A summation of the retirement income review distributed by treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s office ahead of the report’s official release on Friday put greater emphasis on Australians using “voluntary savings”, including equity within their homes, ahead of raising compulsory superannuation contributions.

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Are backpackers really less valuable to New Zealand than those with more money | Anthony Gardiner

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‘Value over volume’ doesn’t take into account the benefits of young tourists, which includes working while they’re here

Kiwis have a long history of welcoming guests and sharing what we love about our country. So it was perhaps no surprise that recent comments from New Zealand’s new minister of tourism, Stuart Nash, have elicited such passionate debate amongst locals and the industry.

Speaking at a summit hosted by the Tourism Industry Aotearoa, Nash said the future of the New Zealand tourism industry is high-net-worth visitors who spend more while they are here. To show his intent in this area Nash also said he would like to ban the hire of non-self-contained vans to tourists to stop “Freedom Campers” – a specific subset of backpackers who sleep in their vehicle wherever the fancy takes them, as opposed to paying a few dollars for a campsite with amenities such as bathrooms.

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‘I don’t care what you think’: Cuomo lashes out at reporters at Covid briefing

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Watching Andrew Cuomo’s coronavirus press briefings was once a household ritual for many in the US and around the world. But on Wednesday, the New York governor lost his cool.

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South Australia enters ‘circuit-breaker’ Covid-19 lockdown – live news

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Strict six-day lockdown begins today to allow for a ‘contract-tracing blitz’ to contain a coronavirus cluster that has so far infected 22 people. Follow live

A Queensland man will face court after allegedly killing a man with one punch outside a pub north of Brisbane.

Police say the 29-year-old and a 49-year-old got into a fight outside a pub on Aerodrome Rd, Caboolture, about 10pm on Wednesday.

Here are some photos from South Australia as the state prepped for lockdown yesterday afternoon.

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New York schools to close again as US approaches 250,000 Covid deaths – live

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The US coronavirus death toll has now surpassed 250,029, representing a higher death toll than any other country in the world.

According to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, x number Americans have now died of coronavirus, more than eight months after the start of the pandemic.

Walmart, McDonald’s and Uber are among the companies that have the most employees on food stamps and Medicaid, according to a report from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The GAO looked into the matter at the behest of Bernie Sanders. “These giant corporations pay starvation wages – wages so low their workers have to rely on Medicaid and food stamps,” Sanders said, pointing to several fast food and other companies whose workers have to rely on benefits because they do not make enough money to survive.

These giant corporations pay starvation wages—wages so low their workers have to rely on Medicaid and food stamps to survive:

Walmart
McDonald’s
Dollar Tree
Uber
Burger King
FedEx
Wendy's

This is what a rigged economy is about. We need a $15 living wage and Medicare for All. https://t.co/GFzfK9ERae

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US passes 250,000 deaths from coronavirus

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  • Bleak landmark comes as more than 11m have been infected
  • Biden Covid adviser warns of further hardship over winter

The United States has seen more than 250,000 deaths due to the coronavirus pandemic as a new swathe of data was released that pushed the stricken country over the grim landmark on Wednesday.

Latest figures from Johns Hopkins University showed that the number of people killed by Covid-19 is now 250,029.

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Covid vaccines should not be seen as ‘unicorn’ solution, says WHO chief – video

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Michael Ryan, the head of the World Health Organization’s emergencies programme, has said that while vaccines are effective tools, they are not the lone solution to ending the coronavirus pandemic.

‘Some people think that vaccines will be, in a sense, the solution, the unicorn we’ve all been chasing,’ he said during a virtual briefing in Geneva on Wednesday, warning other measures such as social distancing needed to be maintained.

It comes after positive efficacy results from late-stage trials of two potential Covid-19 vaccines

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New York City public schools to close again as coronavirus cases rise

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  • Closure plan after city reaches 3% Covid test positivity rate
  • Mayor Bill de Blasio: ‘We must fight the second wave’

Public schools in New York City will close again on Thursday, officials announced, after the city reached a 3% Covid test positivity rate.

Related: Covid deaths near 250,000 as US urged to act to stop 'unrelenting' spread

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Norwegian Air files for bankruptcy protection in Ireland

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Low-cost airline to continue reduced flight schedule and shares will still be traded in Oslo

Low-cost airline Norwegian Air has filed for bankruptcy protection in Ireland, becoming the biggest casualty of the coronavirus pandemic in the aviation sector to date.

The troubled carrier has asked an Irish court to carry out a process of examinership. This should protect the group’s assets while it tries to slash debt levels and find new funding as part of a restructuring. It is expected to take as long as five months.

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Mayo Clinic: 900 employees at top US hospital catch Covid-19 in two weeks

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More than 900 employees at Mayo Clinic, a top research hospital that is based in Rochester, Minnesota, have contracted Covid-19 in the last two weeks.

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