Category Archives: Health

Coronavirus Australia live update: Queensland to imprison rule-breakers as it bans travellers from NSW and Victoria hotspots – latest news

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Fines have not been enough to deter people from ignoring public health directions, state government says. Follow the latest news and updates, live

Acting Rural Fire Service commissioner Rob Rogers has been formally appointed to the position, replacing Shane Fitzsimmons as leader of the NSW fire agency.

Rogers began volunteering with the RFS in 1979 and has been acting in the role since April. He was a deputy commissioner during the horrific 2019-2020 fires.

Rob is truly a veteran of the RFS. From his seat on the ‘Belrose Blitz’ (fire tanker) to the commissioner’s chair - the community has benefited from Rob’s leadership in action over successive fire seasons.

We’ve been working in lockstep with Rob Rogers and the RFS to ensure the state is as prepared as it can be to face disaster again this bushfire season.

The Queensland Council for Civil Liberties has called on the state government to release the draft of its bill to increase the maximum penalty for breaching public health orders to six months imprisonment.

The public health act already carries fines of $4,003 for breaching the chief health officer’s directions, which currently includes entering Queensland without a valid border declaration pass.

The proposed further Covid-19 legislation containing prison terms of up to 6 months represents a significant increase in penalties and in that regard the proposed legislation should have been the subject of public consultation.

There has been no consultation with this Council and so far as I am aware no consultation with other stakeholders such as the Queensland Law Society or the Bar Association.

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Boris Johnson indicates at PMQs he has not read winter coronavirus report

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Keir Starmer presses PM over scientists’ call for preparations for possible second wave

Boris Johnson has indicated he has not read a government-commissioned report setting out urgent measures needed to prepare for a possible second wave of coronavirus, telling the Commons only that he was “aware” of it.

Johnson was questioned at length by Keir Starmer at prime minister’s questions about the study by 37 senior doctors and scientists, published this week, and the need for an effective test-and-trace system to mitigate any new outbreak.

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Australia’s Covid-19 face mask advice: can I reuse them, what’s the best to use and where to buy?

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The health department now recommends masks where community transmission of coronavirus is occurring and physical distancing is difficult. From washable cloth face masks to reusable ones and how to wear them, here’s what you need to know

  • Follow live news from around Australia
  • What you need to know about Melbourne’s stage 3 lockdown rules
  • Melbourne coronavirus map: where Covid-19 cases are rising or falling
  • Sign up for Guardian Australia’s coronavirus email

    • Last week, the national cabinet updated its position on the use of face masks, deciding that people should wear them in locations where there is community transmission of the coronavirus and where social distancing is difficult.

    The announcement was a response to rising case numbers in Melbourne, which is now in the early stages of a six-week stage three lockdown.

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    Coronavirus: nurses not wearing masks led to A&E closure, inquiry finds

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    Exclusive: training session at Hillingdon hospital resulted in 70 staff being quarantined

    Nurses not wearing face masks or staying two metres apart led to an outbreak of Covid-19 that shut an A&E unit after 70 staff at a hospital had to go into quarantine, an inquiry has found.

    An investigation by Hillingdon hospital in north-west London has found that a nurse who had coronavirus unwittingly infected 16 others during a training session they all attended on 30 June, in what was described by a doctor as a “super-spreading event”.

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    Abortion drugs remain inaccessible, unsafe and unaffordable for many Australian women | Gina Rushton

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    A dearth of political leadership means abortion drugs remain inaccessible, unsafe and unaffordable for many women

    It has been 24 years since the federal government chose the partial privatisation of Telstra over the rights of Australian women to safely terminate a pregnancy with abortion drugs. In 1996, anti-abortion independent Brian Harradine, who held the balance of power in the Senate, agreed to support John Howard’s one-third float of the telecommunications company if the government amended legislation to give the health minister veto to prohibit the import, manufacture or use of abortion drug RU486 (mifepristone).

    A perpetual dearth of political leadership in the subsequent quarter century has meant the drugs remain inaccessible, unaffordable and at times unsafe for many women in Australia outside of a certain income or major city.

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    Face masks to be mandatory in shops in England, says Hancock – video

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    Face coverings protect workers and give the public greater confidence to shop, Matt Hancock has said. The health secretary confirmed in a statement to the House of Commons that shoppers would be required to wear masks while in shops and supermarkets. Those who do not will face fines of up to £100

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    NSW on ‘extra high alert’ for Covid-19 resurgence as hotel crackdown announced

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    Premier Gladys Berejiklian details stricter regime for pubs as cluster linked to the Crossroads Hotel grows to 30 cases

    New South Wales is on “extra high alert” for a widespread Covid-19 resurgence and will require so-called hygiene marshals to enforce social distancing at every pub in the state.

    The crackdown comes after patrons who visited a Sydney hotel at the centre of the state’s largest outbreak expressed concern over relaxed safety practices and the pub’s manager conceded more could have been done to record visitors’ contact details.

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    Baby boy infected with coronavirus in womb

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    French study is believed to be first such confirmed case but doctors say infant has made good recovery

    Doctors in France have reported what they believe to be the first proven case of Covid-19 being passed on from a pregnant woman to her baby in the womb.

    The newborn boy developed inflammation in the brain within days of being born, a condition brought on after the virus crossed the placenta and established an infection prior to birth. He has since made a good recovery.

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    Brexit: UK’s new fast-track immigration system to exclude care workers

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    Minimum salary thresholds to also remain in place, presenting additional barrier

    Care home staff have been excluded from a post-Brexit fast-track visa system for health workers, in a move that critics say could prove “an unmitigated disaster” and may increase the risk of spreading coronavirus.

    Confirming there would be no special treatment for carers coming from the EU or the rest of the world, the government said it hoped Britons would fill a shortfall of around 120,000 workers, equating to 10% of all posts. Currently 17% of care jobs are filled by foreign citizens.

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    Coronavirus: no return to normal ‘for the foreseeable future’, says WHO – video

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    Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organization, has criticised the leaders of countries where 'mixed messages' have led to a breakdown in trust over measures to limit the spread of Covid-19.  Tedros said there would be no return to the old normal 'for the foreseeable future', adding: 'there are no short cuts out of this pandemic'.

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    As Covid-19 persists around the world, death is not the only outcome to fear | Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz

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    There are worrying trends about long-term damage, even in those with milder symptoms

    There are a lot of unknowns about Covid-19. This makes sense, because despite six months of the most amazing scientific effort of our lifetimes, the coronavirus is a novel disease which means that we are constantly finding out new things about it. Even now, the debate about the most likely method of spread of the disease rages on, in part because the idea of masks has in many places become somehow a political decision rather than a scientific one.

    Sometimes 2020 feels like living in the Bad Place (but with less frozen yoghurt).

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    The Guardian view on Covid-19 worldwide: on the march

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    Infections are accelerating in largely untouched countries and those which hoped they had come through the worst. But there is hope

    “Most of the world sort of sat by and watched with almost a sense of detachment and bemusement,” said Helen Clark, appointed to investigate the World Health Organization’s handling of the pandemic. The former New Zealand prime minister was describing the early weeks of the outbreak, and the sense that coronavirus was a problem “over there”. The failure to recognise our interconnection created complacency even as the death toll rose.

    It took three months for the first million people to fall sick – but only a week to record the last million of the nearly 13 million cases now reported worldwide. As England emerges from lockdown at an unwary pace, Covid-19 is accelerating globally. The WHO has reported a record surge of a quarter of a million cases in a single day. The death toll is over half a million people and rising fast.

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    Fifth of vulnerable people considered self-harm in UK lockdown

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    Exclusive: UCL findings shared with the Guardian underline mental health toll of pandemic

    A fifth of vulnerable people in Britain thought about self-harming or killing themselves during lockdown, according to research shared with the Guardian, as a series of inquests underline the mental health toll of the Covid-19 pandemic.

    Findings from University College London reveal that 8,000 out of 44,000 people surveyed (18%) reported thoughts of self-harm or suicide, and 42% had accessed support services. A further 5% said they had harmed themselves at least once since the start of the UK’s lockdown.

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    Crossroads Hotel: thousands told to isolate for two weeks as Sydney coronavirus cluster grows

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    Nine cases have been added to the cluster in Casula and the contact dates have been widened to 3 to 10 July

    Thousands of pub-goers have been asked to self-isolate for two weeks after a hotel staff member and three other people became the latest cases in an emerging coronavirus cluster.

    The 18-year-old staffer and a close contact in her 50s, plus a woman in her 40s and a Victorian man in his 20s, who both dined at the venue, were on Sunday confirmed as new cases linked to Sydney’s Crossroads Hotel cluster.

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    Boris Johnson plans radical shake-up of NHS in bid to regain more direct control

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    Exclusive: health secretary said to be frustrated by his lack of authority over NHS England boss Simon Stevens

    Boris Johnson is planning a radical and politically risky reorganisation of the NHS amid government frustration at the health service’s chief executive, Simon Stevens, the Guardian has learned.

    The prime minister has set up a taskforce to devise plans for how ministers can regain much of the direct control over the NHS they lost in 2012 under a controversial shake-up masterminded by Andrew Lansley, the then coalition government health secretary.

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    WHO’s Covid-19 inquiry is a shrewd move in a sea of disinformation

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    Its findings should illuminate global responses amid conspiracy theories and Trump’s mudslinging

    In the world of epidemiology it’s sometimes said that pandemics are lived forwards and understood backwards.

    We encounter them head-on, chaotically, trying to fathom the disease in real time even while trying to mitigate its impact. Lessons generally come later as the evidence accumulates.

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    Coronavirus Australia live update: NSW records 14 new Covid-19 cases as Victoria reports 288 new cases

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    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/daEpRqXyQV pic.twitter.com/lccT3Rvwef

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    Scots to be allowed to meet indoors as lockdown eases further

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    Sturgeon confirms country is ready for phase 3 of easing plan, with rule changes from Friday

    Scots will be able to meet each other indoors and stay overnight from Friday for the first time in more than three months, as Nicola Sturgeon confirmed that the country was ready to enter phase 3 of her government’s route map to reopening.

    Announcing a raft of new guidance in a statement to Holyrood on Thursday, she added that non-cohabiting couples would be allowed to meet outdoors, indoors and overnight without physical distancing, while children under 12 would no longer have to physically distance outdoors or indoors.

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    Boris Johnson’s pledge to recruit 50,000 more NHS nurses is in doubt

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    Number of nurses coming from EU fell again and coronavirus prevented further arrivals

    Boris Johnson’s pledge to recruit 50,000 more NHS nurses is in doubt after the number coming from the EU fell again and coronavirus prevented thousands of arrivals from the rest of the world.

    The prime minister made the promise a cornerstone of his general election campaign last year and has since reiterated many times his determination to deliver the increase.

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    How to stop your glasses steaming up – and 19 other essential facts about face masks

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    How often should you wash a cloth mask? And how effective are the disposable ones? The expert guide to choosing, wearing and caring for your face covering

    The British have been slow to embrace face masks, despite calls from public health experts. Uptake has been just 25% in the UK, compared with 83.4% in Italy and 65.8% in the US. The president of the Royal Society, Venki Ramakrishnan, said this week that wearing one “is the right thing to do” and that a refusal to do so should be seen as socially unacceptable as drink-driving or not wearing a seatbelt.

    Perhaps one of the problems has been the changing advice as new evidence emerges. The World Health Organization (WHO) now recommends people wear cloth masks. Ramakrishnan said that in the UK, “the message has not been clear enough, so perhaps people do not really understand the benefits or are not convinced”. It also doesn’t help that the guidance across the UK is different.

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