Australians will soon be able to test themselves for Covid-19 from the comfort of their own homes.
The massive shake-up to the country’s testing regime was confirmed by federal health minister Greg Hunt on Monday. The government has approved 28 types of rapid-antigen tests, with the final decision now with the Therapeutic Goods Association (TGA).
Mr Hunt said up until now there hadn’t been enough support for the change from some of the state’s chief health officers.
“But right now I think we’ve got that momentum,” he told talkback radio host Ray Hadley on Monday. “They’re being used in workplaces, in aged care and elsewhere and the next frontier is to move for approval on the home front.”
Mr Hunt said the rapid home testing kits could be approved “within the coming months, if not weeks”.
However, he wouldn’t be drawn on whether they would be definitely be available by the time freedoms became available for fully vaccinated people living in locked down states.
“I’ll never pre-empt their (the TGA’s) approvals,” he said. “As we move into the next phases, I am very, very confident that these will be available for Australians.”
It comes as five more people died from Covid in NSW and the state recorded 1281 new cases.
The latest deaths include a man in his 90s who was fully vaccinated, two women in their 80s, a man in his 60s and a woman in her 50s.
Read Monday's blog.
Updates
Curfews "don't work" to stop the spread of Covid, John Barilaro has declared.
The Deputy Premier's comments cast doubt over the value of keeping residents of 12 hotspot local government areas locked in their homes between 9pm and 5am each night.
Mr Barilaro told regional media that a curfew in the hotspot LGAs was a result of "a lot of media push".
"If you look at the numbers … since we put the curfew in, nothing has occurred, nothing has changed, numbers continue to rise," he said.
It comes after Labor Leader Chris Minns called for the overnight curfew for areas of concern to be scrapped.
In response to that call, Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the government needs to "follow the advice we have" in imposing restrictions.
Ms Berejiklian has previously said a curfew would not have an effect in reducing case numbers.
Chief health officer Kerry Chant has said evidence that curfews work is "mixed".
A woman in her 70s has died with Covid at Dubbo Base Hospital, the second Covid death recorded in Western NSW.
It comes after four deaths were reported in Monday's official figures, including a man in his 60s from the Southern Highlands who died at home. The man was only tested for Covid after his death. It is understood he had significant underlying health conditions.
Thanks for tagging along so far on our live Covid blog. But in case you missed it, here's some of the top stories of today:
- NSW has recorded 1281 cases and five new deaths, with the premier warning the peak day of cases is expected in "a week or so".
- Modelling outlining how the state's healthcare system will handle the outbreak's peak has been released by officials, showing ICU admissions could peak at over 500.
- There's been a second death in western NSW, an Aboriginal woman in her 70s who was unvaccinated died this morning.
- Bus drivers have gone on strike across Sydney to protest a workplace Covid testing dispute.
- VIC recorded 246 new Covid cases, with 83 per cent under 50, with the healthm inister calling it a "pandemic of the unvaccinated".
- QLD reopened its border to residents and people moving there this morning, and recorded zero new cases despite a scare over the weekend linked to a truckie.
- ACT recorded 11 cases and hit the 70 per cent single dose milestone, but testing rates remain low.
Thanks again for keeping up with the blog this morning, we'll be back bright and early with Tuesday's Covid news tomorrow morning.
A police officer is waging a Supreme Court challenge to orders that all authorised workers from Covid-19 hot spots must get vaccinated.
Senior Constable Belinda Hocroft, who is attached the Dog and Mounted Police unit, has filed a legal action against NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard arguing she is not an anti-vaxxer but she is concerned about the long term effects of the vaccine and does not want to receive it.
Ms Hocroft’s lawyer Charly Tannous from Sage Solicitors said the action challenges the Minister’s right to require people in the affected LGAs to be vaccinated before they can leave the area and the test case is likely to affect thousands of workers.
For more on this story, click here.
A second Indigenous person with COVID-19 has died in western NSW.
The Aboriginal woman in her 70s died a Dubbo Base Hospital this morning, according to Western NSW Local Health District Chief Executive Scott McLachlan.
Mr McLachlan said at a regional Covid update press conference that the woman, from from Enngonia, north of Bourke, was unvaccinated.
He called her passing "tragic".
"A tragic day in western New South Wales that's seen a second death in our region," Mr McLachlan said.
"This is a very sombre reminder of the tragic outcomes that can happen when people get COVID… they sadly deteriorate very quickly with this virus."
The woman is the second person in the western region to die with the virus since NSW's Delta outbreak in mid-June.
An Aboriginal man from Dubbo in his 50s with significant health conditions died in hospital in late-August.
An eastern suburbs primary school has been forced to shut in the middle of classes today after a positive case was linked to the campus.
Maroubra Junction Public School has been closed immediately today for cleaning and contact tracing after someone linked to the school tested positive, according to a Department of Education spokesman.
"Maroubra Junction Public School will be closed immediately today, Monday, 6 September 2021, for cleaning and contact tracing after a member of the school community tested positive for COVID-19…The Maroubra Junction Public School Care Centre will also be closed," the spokesman said.
"All staff and students are asked to self-isolate and follow the NSW health advice and protocols."
It is not yet known how many students and staff are considered close contacts or whether the positive case is from the eastern suburbs as well.
Hundreds of Sydney bus drivers walked off the job this morning to protest a lack of rapid Covid testing at work.
Drivers at four depots across Greater Sydney in Penrith, Seven Hills, Bankstown and Smithfield hit the brakes and left their posts from 8am for a two-hour pause over safety concerns.
The Transport Workers Union said drivers were protesting because there's no rapid antigen swabs in the workplace after testing was paused by NSW Health.
TWU NSW State Secretary Richard Olsen said drivers didn’t want to disrupt the community but needed more protection as frontline workers.
“While vaccination is our most effective defence against Covid-19, it is not a silver bullet as it is still possible for vaccinated workers to unknowingly transmit the virus to colleagues and/or passengers who may not be vaccinated," Mr Olsen said.
“Introducing rapid antigen testing and PCR surveillance testing for public transport workers would add an additional layer of defence and significantly reduce the risk of Covid-positive workers unintentionally spreading the virus to colleagues and passengers.”
It comes as several bus drivers tested positive to Covid after working while infectious in the past week, according to the TWU.
Chief Minister Andrew Barr has again begged Canberrans to come forward and get tested the second they feel sick after officials discovered people were still waiting "days" to get swabbed.
"We've been seeing day on day, there's still a proportion of the community who are delaying getting tested when they're developing symptoms," Mr Barr said.
"They're waiting a day or two…. this is one of the major reasons why there are still cases
infectious in the community."
The wait time between AstraZenenca doses has been reduced from 12 weeks down to four to eight weeks, he said.
It comes as Canberra hit the 70 per cent single dose milestone in recent days.
Nearly 46 per cent of eligible Canberrans have now received two doses.
It comes as more than 100 exposure sites were identified over the weekend.
The nation's capital has recorded 11 new Covid cases.
There are now 222 active cases in Canberra, according to Chief Minister Andrew Barr.
Nine have been linked to exposure sites or other cases, while two more are being investigated.
But Mr Barr added only three had been totally isolated while infectious.
"We're aware that seven have spent at least part of their infectious period in the community and there's one that's still under further investigation," he said.
Eleven people remain in hospital, including one in intensive care on a ventilator
Most of regional Victoria could be released from lockdown this week, as the regions continue to report low transmission.
Health Minister Martin Foley said there would likely be an easing of restrictions everywhere bar the regional town of Shepparton, where four more cases were recorded on Monday.
But Victoria’s Covid-19 commander Jeroen Weimar flagged construction sites were becoming an industry of concern for officials due to lax Covid compliance.
Mr Weimar shared one in 10 sites were being found to not be wearing masks, not social distancing and not following Covid safe plans.
"“We rely upon our essential workers to do not only the most important jobs at this difficult time, but also to do them as safely as possible," he said.
“The last thing we want is other work sites having to be closed down because we’ve got significant COVID outbreaks.”
For more on VIC's Covid latest, click here.
