Coronavirus: Australia set to start easing COVID-19 restrictions, Donald Trump’s plan to punish China
Australians have been so successful flattening the coronavirus curve, restrictions will start being eased next week, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has revealed.
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Australia to begin easing COVID-19 restrictions next week
Aged care sector code will be introduced to help facilitate visits
National Cabinet agrees to resumption of community sport activities
Trump hints at plan tp punish China as UK ‘past peak’ of virus
Australians have been so successful flattening the coronavirus curve they have earned an “early mark” with restrictions to start being eased in just one week, Scott Morrison has revealed.
The Prime Minister said the National Cabinet of state and territory leaders had agreed to consider easing strict shut down measures from May 8 - a week earlier than was originally planned when the committee agreed to wait a month before moving any reactions.
Mr Morrison said one “critical” element in deciding how far restrictions are rolled back included how many people downloaded the federal government’s COVIDSafe app.
“It’s over to you Australia, as we get through this next seven days,” he said. Mr Morrison said not installing the app was like going into the “blazing sun” without wearing sunscreen.
Asked what restrictions could be eased from next Friday, Mr Morrison said a broad review of the rules was under way but he would not “second guess that process”.
The National Cabinet has also agreed on measures to allow the resumption of community sport activities.
Mr Morrison said the national cabinet had a good discussion about how professional sporting codes could resume playing matches.
But he said decisions on how and when that happened would be up to state health authorities, not the national cabinet.
Aged care providers will receive a share of $205 million from the federal government as a one-off payment to support them with additional costs and expenses dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.
The National Cabinet also agreed on an industry code for the aged care sector, which will help facilitate visits to the elderly during the pandemic.
Aged Care Minister Richard Colbeck said all the major providers had signed up to the code. “I’ve had some very very good conversations with some key players in
the sector this week ... and things they are already doing to facilitate visits,” he said.
It followed concerns raised by top health officials that some nursing homes were completely banning visits, which was unnecessarily harming the mental health of elderly residents and causing distress for families.
Chief Medical Officer Professor Brendan Murphy said the effective reproduction rate — showing how the virus is spreading — is now not useful to the national cabinet because the number of new cases across the country is so low.
He said enhanced testing was crucial to prevent a “second wave” of the virus.
Community sport is also expected to restart in groups of less than 10 people in non-contact activities.
New guidelines on sport, agreed by the national cabinet today, say the resumption of sport should also include outdoor activities such as outdoor boot camps, golf, fishing, bushwalking and swimming.
It will be up to individual states and territories to determine when this can happen, based on local issues with the coronavirus.
Professional sporting codes will be required to seek permission from relevant state and territory health authorities to start training and matches.
The guidelines say that whole teams could need to be quarantined if a positive COVID-19 case is identified at a club once training has resumed.
“Significantly enhanced risk mitigation” such as social distancing will be needed for all indoor activities involving sport, including in change rooms, training facilities and gyms.
More specific principles for individual sports will be released this afternoon after being developed with the Australian Institute of Sport.
TRUMP THREATENS TO PUNISH CHINA OVER COVID-19
US President Donald Trump threatened new tariffs against Beijing after claiming there is evidence linking the coronavirus to a lab in China’s ground-zero city of Wuhan.
Asked if he had seen anything giving him a high degree of confidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the origin of the outbreak, Trump replied, “Yes, I have.” The Republican is increasingly making complaints over Beijing’s handling of the pandemic outbreak a major issue for his November reelection campaign.
He told reporters at the White House that US agencies were investigating how the virus first emerged and what China had done to stop it spreading to the rest of the world.
“We’ll be able to get a very powerful definition of what happened,” he said, adding that a report would be made to him “in the not too distant future.” But even as the issue remains under probe, Trump said he already has suspicions. “They could have stopped it,” he said, attacking China for not canceling international flights out of the country in time.
Several theories are circulating on how the virus appeared in Wuhan, including that it emerged from a market selling live animals or accidentally from the Wuhan research lab.
The US intelligence community said Thursday it had concluded that the novel coronavirus originated in China but was not man-made or engineered.
Pressed by reporters at the White House for details on what made him so confident about a link to the laboratory, Trump replied: “I cannot tell you that.” Regardless of where blame lies for the outbreak, Trump is ramping up a war of words with Beijing, claiming again on Thursday that “China doesn’t want to see me reelected.” Attention is now turning to what Trump will do in terms of threatened retaliation. The new tension comes only months after the US and China settled a trade war which had been roiling world markets.
Until now Trump has been notably vague on what measures he is considering but tariffs, he said, are a possibility.
the world due to some kind of horrible “mistake,” and his intelligence agencies said they are still examining a notion put forward by the president and aides that the pandemic may have resulted from an accident at a Chinese lab.
Trump even suggested the release could have been intentional. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the clearinghouse for the web of U.S. spy agencies, said it had ruled out the virus being “manmade” but was still investigating the precise source of the global pandemic, which has killed more than 220,000 people worldwide.
Though scientists suggest the likeliest origin of the pandemic remains natural, that it spread from an infected animal to a human, Trump claimed to have seen evidence to support the theory that the origin was an infectious disease lab in Wuhan, the epicenter of the Chinese outbreak.
He said the US now “is finding how it came out.” “It’s a terrible thing that happened,” the president said.
“Whether they made a mistake or whether it started off as a mistake and then they made another one, or did somebody do something on purpose.”
The intel statement said the federal agencies concur “with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified.”
“The IC will continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan.”
In recent days the Trump administration has sharpened its rhetoric on China, accusing the geopolitical foe and vital trading partner of failing to act swiftly enough to sound the alarm about the outbreak or to stop the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19. US officials have said the Chinese government should “pay a price” for its handling of the pandemic.
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CHINA RELEASES BIZARRE VIDEO
China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency has released a bizarre video attacking America’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic in a move that is sure to further inflame tense relations between the two superpowers.
The video, released overnight, titled ‘Once Upon a Virus’ parodies old US movie reel productions and is set to the tune of 1960s hit The Entertainer.
In it, two Lego figures, one a Chinese worker with a mask, the other the Statue of Liberty, bicker over each country’s response to the outbreak of the epidemic.
The short video portrays China, whose handling of the pandemic has been regularly criticised by US president Donald Trump, as a responsible global citizen. Meanwhile the US is displayed as an ignorant whinger who has ignored Chinese warnings on what was going on.
The video also has the WHO as supporting China’s stance. Australia has called for an investigation into the WHO’s handling of the crisis.
“We discovered a new virus,” starts the Chinese worker.
“So what,” replies the State of Liberty.
The dialogue continues with the two figures arguing over how serious the new virus is, whether people should wear a mask and stay at home and the widely debated virus figures before the Statue of Liberty finishes with: “We are correct even though we contradict ourselves.”
To which the Chinese figure replies: “That’s what I love best about you Americans, your consistency.”
AUSSIE TROOPS GET COVID-19
Five defence force officers who contracted coronavirus in the Middle East have been flown home to Australia.
Personnel serving in the region were tested after a number of local contractors became infected with the virus.
The five Australians are all asymptomatic.
Four returned to Australia on Friday morning on a routine defence force flight and were taken to Royal Darwin Hospital for assessment.
The fifth, who recently completed their deployment, previously returned to Australia and is currently in mandatory quarantine in Brisbane. The Australian Defence Force says it decided to test personnel “after being notified that a number of locally engaged contractors had tested positive”. It did not say exactly where the officers became infected.
“Defence will take all necessary measures in consultation with our Coalition partners, relevant host nations and Australian federal, state and territory governments to ensure ADF personnel receive the treatment and care required,” it said in a statement on Friday.
DOZENS OF BODIES FOUND IN TRUCKS OUTSIDE NYC FUNERAL HOME
It comes as police were called to a Brooklyn neighbourhood in the New York borough of Brooklyn after a funeral home overwhelmed by the coronavirus resorted to storing dozens of bodies on ice in rented trucks, and a passer-by complained about the smell, officials said.
Investigators who responded to an emergency call found that the home had rented four trucks to hold about 50 bodies, according to a police official. No criminal charges were brought and the official, who was not authorised to speak publicly about the investigation, spoke to media on condition of anonymity.
The Andrew T. Cleckley Funeral Home was cited for failing to control the odours. The home was able to obtain a larger, refrigerated truck later in the day, the official said.
Workers suited up in protective gear could be seen in the afternoon transferring bodies into the refrigerated truck.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio on Thursday (local time) called the funeral home’s actions “unconscionable.”
I have no idea in the world how any funeral home could let this happen,” Mr de Blasio said at a press briefing, arguing that officials at the home should have asked its state regulators or even city police for help if it was becoming overwhelmed.
The funeral home “should have been able to figure it out,” he said.
New York City funeral homes have struggled in the city since late March. The city set up temporary morgues. Hospitals used refrigerated tractor trailers to cart away multiple bodies at a time, sometimes loading them in public view on the sidewalk. Crematoriums have been backed up. Funeral directors across the city have pleaded for help as they have run out of space.
The New York Police Department notified the state Department of Health, which oversees funeral homes, about the situation at the Andrew T. Cleckley Funeral Home.
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams went to the scene.
“While this situation is under investigation, we should not have what we have right now, with trucks lining the streets filled with bodies,” he said.
He said “it was people who walked by who saw some leakage and detected an odour coming from a truck.”
UK ‘PAST ITS VIRUS PEAK’
Boris Johnson has said Britain is now “past the peak” of the coronavirus, and promised an extensive plan to end Britain’s lockdown would come next week.
The British Prime Minister led the government’s nightly press briefing for the first time since his own coronavirus fight, as he braced Britain for weeks more shutdown to keep the rate of transmission low.
It came as the UK’s death toll reached 26,711 on Thursday (local time) – up by 674 deaths in the last 24 hours.
Britain is now the third-most affected in the world behind the United States and Italy on cumulative deaths, after changing its reporting to include community as well as hospital deaths on Wednesday.
But Mr Johnson, making his first appearance at a daily government briefing since his own battle with COVID-19, said there were reasons for optimism.
“For the first time, we are past the peak of this disease … and we are on the downward slope,” he told reporters.
“We are coming through the peak or rather we are coming over what could have been a vast peak, as though we have been going through some huge Alpine tunnel.
“And we can now see the sunlight and the pastures ahead of us. So it’s vital that we don’t now lose control and run slap into a second and even bigger mountain.”
The government’s chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, said the rate of transmission was now below one, with fewer hospital admissions and people in intensive care.
That was having an effect on overall deaths, he said.
“The R (rate of transmission) is below one. We think it’s between 0.6 and 0.9 across the nation. Maybe a little lower in some places, a little higher in others but it’s below one across the country,” he added, referring to the number of people infected by one person with COVID-19.
Mr Johnson’s return to work has coincided with increased pressure to lift a lockdown that was imposed in late March to cut close contact transmission of the virus.
He said a “road map” would be published next week about the government’s plan to ease restrictions, after concerns about the economic effect of the social distancing measures.
“The dates and times of each individual measure will be very much driven by where we are in the epidemic,” he added.
‘COMFORT’ NAVY SHIP LEAVES NYC
A navy hospital ship left New York City on Thursday (local time), a month after it was sent to relieve stress on hospitals at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. After arriving to great fanfare, the USNS Comfort treated just 182 people as a surge in cases in the hard-hit city fell short of the worst-case projections. The last dozen patients on the ship were discharged or transferred to other hospitals over the weekend.
Eleven people that were treated on the ship died from coronavirus, the Defence Department said. Several ship personnel came down with coronavirus while deployed to New York.
A Pentagon spokesman called the ship’s departure “a sure sign of modest progress in mitigating the virus in the nation’s hardest hit city and is a welcome sign.”
Governor Andrew Cuomo said last week that he and Mr Trump agreed the Comfort was no longer needed in New York City.
“I believe Comfort not only brought comfort but also saved lives,” Gov. Cuomo said. The Comfort and its 620 doctors, nurses and other crew members will return to the homeport in Norfolk, Virginia, where the ship will be restocked and be readied for another possible assignment.
Gov. Cuomo also announced that New York City will shut down its subway system each day from 1am to 5am to increase cleaning of trains and stations during the coronavirus crisis.
Subway trains, which had been disinfected at least once every 72 hours, will be cleaned once every 24 hours starting May 6.
Gov. Cuomo said buses, vans and other alternative transportation will be provided at no charge for essential workers to get around while the subway system is closed. Gov. Cuomo said the increased cleaning is a “daunting challenge,” but vital to keeping the system safe because it continues to be a place of high density. Images posted on social media in recent weeks have showed packed subway cars, leading police to increase social distancing enforcement.
“You have to disinfect every place a hand could touch on a subway car. Every rail, every pole, every door,” Gov. Cuomo said. “Or, coughing, sneezing, wherever droplets could land.”
Dozens of transit employees have died of the coronavirus and the system has become a haven for homeless people during the crisis.
Ridership plunged by 92 per cent since the start of the pandemic, Gov. Cuomo said, and most of the people commuting are health care workers, first responders and other frontline workers who’ve been keeping the city running.
RUSSIAN PM DIAGNOSED WITH CORONAVIRUS
Meanwhile, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin announced on Thursday (local time) he has tested positive for the coronavirus, as the country’s number of confirmed cases surged past 100,000 after its largest daily increase.
In a televised meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Mr Mishustin said he has to “observe self-isolation” to protect his colleagues, suggesting a temporary acting PM.
Putin swiftly signed a decree appointing First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov as a temporary replacement.
The president assured Mr Mishustin that contracting COVID-19 “can happen to anyone” and that no major decisions would be taken without his input.
“I hope that you stay able to work,” Mr Putin told Mr Mishustin, who is the highest Russian official to become infected.
“Call me as soon as you arrive to the hospital,” said Mr Putin, who appointed Mr Mishustin in a surprise decision in January, picking the formerly obscure tax service chief to replace longtime premier Dmitry Medvedev.
Mr Putin has not held any face-to-face meetings for weeks, according to the Kremlin website, and was last shown in the same room as Mr Mishustin on March 24.
It comes as a spike of 7099 confirmed infections in the last 24 hours brought Russia’s total to 106,498 cases and 1073 deaths, according to the government’s daily coronavirus update.
With its number of cases increasing by several thousand each day, Russia is now the European country registering the most new infections.
GERMANY EASES LOCKDOWNS
German authorities agreed on Thursday (local time) to reopen playgrounds, churches and cultural institutions such as museums and zoos that have been shuttered because of the coronavirus pandemic, but postponed a decision on whether to relax the rules for restaurants, hotels and kindergartens.
Chancellor Angela Merkel said there would be regional differences because of Germany’s federal structure, but the overall goal remained to ensure that the country’s health system could cope with the outbreak.
“So far, we have managed to succeed in doing so,” she told reporters after a meeting with the governors of Germany’s 16 states.
“We have all together achieved a lot in recent weeks.” The country of 83 million has recorded almost 162,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 6,467 deaths so far, according to figures compiled by Johns Hopkins University in the US. That is about a quarter the number of deaths reported in Britain and France, even though the three countries have a similar number of confirmed cases.
Over the past week, Germany recorded between 1000 and 1500 new cases a day, down from 2000 the previous week.
The country’s success in flattening the curb of infections has sparked calls for an end to the lockdown, particularly from businesses that have been forced to close because of social distancing measures.
Mrs Merkel said the federal and state governments wouldn’t make a decision on reopening hotels and restaurants at their next meeting on May 6, which will focus on further relaxing the rules for schools, childcare centres and sports facilities.
“Caution is require, as well as sticking to hygiene measures,” she said. The head of Germany’s disease control centre earlier Thursday likened the pandemic to a marathon.
“We simply don’t know how long it will take for the marathon to end,” Lothar Wieler of the Robert Koch Institute said.
Mr Wieler said Germany was currently going through the first wave of the pandemic. “The majority of scientists believe that there will be a second wave and maybe even a third,” he added.
Federal and state authorities also agreed on Thursday to extend the ban on large sports events, concerts and festivals until at least August 31. But hospitals will be allowed to resume routine operations that had been ordered put on hold last month, after data showed a sufficient reserve of intensive care unit beds in the country.
Still, like elsewhere, medical staff in the country are feeling the strain. “The burden is certainly great as we have to deal with a highly infectious disease every day, and the treatment regime is not clearly defined,” said Dr Daniel Heidenkummer, who oversees the treatment of COVID-19 patients at the InnKlinikum Altoetting, near Germany’s border with Austria.
The hospital has treated almost 600 patients with severe illness resulting from coronavirus since early March.
Restrictions on visitors mean that staff have to spend more time tending to the emotional welfare of patients, a burden that would normally be borne largely by friends and family, Dr Heidenkummer said.
Mrs Merkel acknowledged the sacrifices made by many Germans because of the lockdown. But she warned against venting frustration at health experts who have been providing sometimes contradictory advice to the government, resulting in a zigzag of decisions in recent months.
“That’s in the nature of the matter,” she said, citing her own experience as a scientist before entering politics more than 30 years ago.
“That’s why science is so exciting, because you never do the same thing twice,” she said, adding that “we politicians are there to draw conclusions.”
AUSTRALIA POISED TO EASE VIRUS RESTRICTIONS
Meanwhile, Australia is poised to ease national coronavirus restrictions after the NT relaxed rules and the ACT reported no active cases of the deadly disease. Pubs and restaurants will reopen across the NT on May 15, while golf, tennis, fishing or swimming with other people will be allowed from Friday. The initial stage of easing restrictions will also lift the ban on outdoor weddings and funerals.
The ACT has no active cases, while the NT has just three.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has flagged a national cabinet meeting with state and territory leaders in mid-May as crucial to lifting some social and economic clamps.
The NT’s eased rules could provide a blueprint for other jurisdictions due to make critical decisions about restarting economic and social activity. ACT Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said it was time for national cabinet and health experts to have a fresh look at future scenarios. “We have been working on a suppression strategy, on a flatten the curve strategy, not really on a elimination strategy,” she told reporters in Canberra on Thursday.
“But now we have got to a point where we are very close to very few active cases in the whole of Australia.”
A MILLION TO APPLY FOR JOBSEEKER
One million Australians are expected to apply for unemployment benefits because of coronavirus.
Senior officials from the Department of Social Services have told a parliamentary committee the number of people on JobSeeker rose by about 500,000 from February to April, with another 400,000 expected to apply by September. The estimates haven’t changed despite the government announcing its wage subsidy program since projections were made.
The government has doubled the JobSeeker payment – formerly known as Newstart – and expanded eligibility to income support for the period of the coronavirus pandemic.
But the department’s secretary Kathryn Campbell remained tight-lipped on whether the government would consider maintaining the higher rate after the pandemic is over.
She said all options were on the table but the department was in the early steps of creating advice for the government.
Ms Campbell said the disability pension was ineligible for the boost because it was designed for people who were in the workforce.
Almost 600,000 businesses have applied for the JobKeeper wage subsidy – a payment of $1500 a fortnight – to support more than 3.3 million workers. The figure is well under the estimated six million workers over a six-month period when the policy was costed at $130 billion.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison says the emergency measures have a set lifespan and a wind back will be needed to ensure the federal budget does not blow out further.
“Labor has serious concerns about the impact this will have on the hundreds of thousands of Australians whose jobs remain uncertain, and the impact this will have on the economy when or if the government suddenly snaps back the payment,” Labor senator Katy Gallagher said.
Officials from Services Australia, National Disability Insurance Agency, NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission officials will also present evidence to the committee.
Another committee is due to report on Thursday afternoon on the adequacy of income support and related payments.
The Senate committee began its work in July last year and has received hundreds of submissions, many of which are critical of the low level of payments. The report is expected to look at what constitutes an acceptable standard of living in Australia, the structural causes of long-term unemployment, and the changing nature of work in Australia.
THREE MILLION DOWNLOAD TRACING APP
More than half a million Australians have been tested for COVID-19 and 3.31 million have downloaded the COVID Safe app.
“Testing is a really important component of the work we are doing, I can report today 556,000 tests have been completed across Australia and we continue to promote that everyone who has minor symptoms to consider getting testing as we are expanding that program across the country,” Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer Alison McMillan said today.
Ms McMillion said anyone who hasn’t downloaded the COVID Safe app should definitely do so.
