Australian Open crowd announcement imminent, Victoria achieves three-week COVID milestone

Victoria’s Black Rock cluster is now a thing of the past, with zero community cases currently active in the state.

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A decision on whether bigger crowds will be allowed to attend the Australian Open is expected to be made within a few days, with Major Events Minister Martin Pakula flagging an announcement was not far off.

It comes as Victoria reached 21 days without recording any locally transmitted coronavirus cases.

Two new infections have emerged in hotel quarantine, with more than 13,600 tests taken on Tuesday.

The number of active cases in Victoria is 31, but the state no longer has any locally acquired active cases.

Asked on Wednesday if public health officials would allow a lifting of the event’s current 35 per cent ticket capacity, Mr Pakula said the government would work to bring in as many people as was safe to do so.

An announcement on Australian Open crowds is imminent.

“The Australian Open starts in less than a fortnight so we’ll have more to say about that in the next few days,” he said.

“I don’t want to pre-empt what the public health panel will determine in regards to that.

“We’ll work with the tennis to get them the best crowd and the best configuration we possibly can, subject to being COVIDSafe and ticked off by the appropriate health officials.”

Mr Pakula said it was still too early to say what rules would be in place for crowds for the AFL season.

“It’s not going to be a single number set at the beginning of the year which will then carry you right the way through to September,” he said.

“The AFL will submit their proposals and they will be considered.

“The longer we go through the year as the vaccine rolls out you may well see those numbers tweak upward, provided we can continue our long run of zero cases.”

Victoria has hit a significant three-week milestone. Picture: NCA NewsWire/ David Crosling

WUHAN DOCTOR: ‘CHINA STOPPED ME SOUNDING COVID ALARM’

A Wuhan doctor has claimed that he and hospital colleagues were stopped from warning others about the looming COVID-19 disaster after they suspected the virus was highly transmissible back in early January, 2020.

The unidentified doctor has opened up about the crisis in a new BBC documentary on the 54 days between the first known case of coronavirus and the Wuhan lockdown. The doctor’s testimony adds to growing evidence of Beijing’s early attempts to cover up the virus outbreak, and bully medical personnel into keeping quiet.

Wuhan’s central hospital is just a few kilometres from the Huanan wet market, ground zero of the coronavirus outbreak, and was quickly overrun by patients after the first cases appeared in December 2019. More than 200 people who worked at the hospital reportedly contracted the virus, and many, including whistleblower doctor Li Wenliang, died.

The doctor told the BBC that the hospital’s respiratory department was at its limit by January 10. “It was out of control, we started to panic,” he said.

Read the full story here.

NZ DISAPPOINTED IN BORDER CLOSURE

New Zealand Prime Minster Jacinda Ardern said she had “expressed her disappointment” to Scott Morrison after Australia suddenly stopped Kiwis from travelling here quarantine-free.

Australia suspended its travel bubble with New Zealand on Monday for 72 hours after a single case of the highly infectious mutant South African strain of COVID-19 was detected there.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said any person arriving from New Zealand would have to go into hotel quarantine for three days — effective immediately — while health officials await more information on the case.

Ms Ardern revealed on Tuesday she spoke to the Prime Minister on Monday night.

“I certainly shared my view that this was a situation that was well under control, that we have had experiences in New Zealand with these situations in the past, if we’re going to run a trans-Tasman arrangement we need to be able to manage situations like this,” she said.

“I conveyed the confidence that we have in our systems but also just acknowledged that if we are to enter into a trans-Tasman bubble we will need to be able to give people confidence that we won’t see closures at the borders that happen with very short notice over incidents we believe can be well managed domestically.”

On Tuesday no further cases in New Zealand had been linked to the person with the mutant strain.

Mr Hunt on Monday said the suspension was due to an “abundance of caution” as the case had spent several days in New Zealand before being ­detected.

Ms Ardern said she was hopeful a travel bubble between Australia and New Zealand could start by the end of March.