Coronavirus Australia live updates: Everything you can't do from midnight

Restrictions to stem Australia's coronavirus epidemic have tightened with a large amount of activities banned since midnight.

Gavin Fernando and Natalie Wolfe

less than 2 min read

March 29, 2020 - 10:53PM

Coronavirus: Scott Morrison's new restrictions on gatherings

A series of new restrictions have taken effect across the country from midnight.

Indoor and outdoor meetings will be limited to a maximum of two people, with a few exceptions.

People have been urged to stay home unless shopping for essentials; leaving for medical or compassionate care; exercising outdoors while distancing; or if they must work or study and can't do so from home.

READ MORE: Follow more coronavirus news

There are now 4,245 confirmed cases across the country.

That includes 1918 in New South Wales, 821 in Victoria, 689 in Queensland, 305 in South Australia, 355 in Western Australia, 66 in Tasmania, 78 in the Australian Capital Territory and 14 in the Northern Territory.

A total of 18 Australians have died from COVID-19, with Tasmania and the ACT announcing their first deaths today.

Our live coverage has ended for the day, here's how it played out

Updates

MECCA temporarily closes all stores

Make-up giant MECCA will temporarily close all of its stores due to the coronavirus update.

In a message to customers, MECCA said it was closing all of its stores until at least the end of April.

"These are difficult and disorienting times we find ourselves in. We’ve tried to keep our doors open, operating with rigorous health and safety measures to protect our customers and our team," MECCA said.

"However, based on the revised advice of the government over the past few days and the challenges in adhering to the increasingly stringent social distancing measures, we have no choice but to temporarily close our stores from today, as nothing is more important to us than the health and safety of our team, our customers and the community in general.

"We anticipate being closed for four weeks until the end of April, but we will keep you up to date with changes. We want to thank our amazing teams for all their incredible efforts to support our customers and each other during these challenging times."

Australia two hours out from new restrictions

Here's a summary of the new measures taking effect from midnight tonight.

Indoor and outdoor meetings will be limited to a maximum of two people, with a few exceptions:

– People who live in the same household going out together

– Attending a funeral (maximum of 10 people)

– Attending a wedding (maximum of five people)

The Government has also urged people to stay home, and only leave their home if they:

– are shopping for essentials, such as food and sanitary items

– require medical or healthcare needs

– have compassionate care duties

– are exercising outdoors (while keeping a safe distance from others, and only with one other person or people of the same household)

– are working or studying and unable to do so from home

Public outdoor spaces including outdoor gyms, skate parks and playgrounds will also be closed.

Police have the power to issue on-the-spot fines, which vary in amount by state and territory, to anyone found to be disobeying these rules.

Government to discuss schools, tenancy on Friday

The National Cabinet met again tonight however any decisions on closing schools or helping tenants won't be made until Friday.

In a statement, the Prime Minister's Office said previous advice to keep schools open had not changed.

"National Cabinet agreed to consider arrangements for early childhood and childcare facilities at their next meeting on April 3."

Commercial and residential tenancies, including helping out people with rent payments, will also be discussed on Friday.

Councils crackdown on backpackers

Waverley Council, in Sydney's east, has announced it will crack down on backpackers after a spike in cases.

The eastern suburbs of Sydney are popular with backpackers however the region has also been one of the city's worst hit by coronavirus.

"Waverley Council is actively carrying out on-site inspections of backpackers and boarding house-type facilities and other residential properties of concern," the council said in a statement tonight.

Health authorities have confirmed a number of new cases of coronavirus amongst backpackers at Bondi.

Let’s just have a look once more at the scene at Bondi Beach on Friday…

If you were there, please urgently self-isolate. pic.twitter.com/0A8ulxCfZz
— Lisa Wilkinson (@Lisa_Wilkinson) March 22, 2020

The council said it has enforcement powers to conduct inspections and make sure people were complying.

"The council does not have enforcement powers under the Public Health Act but will report breaches if corrective action is not taken," Waverley Council said.

"Waverley Council has been informed by NSW Health that it is working on a strategy for addressing concerns with backpacker and boarding house-type facilities. Our number-one priority is the health of our community. We all have a role to play to help slow the spread of COVID-19."

Government's 'biggest single concern' in coronavirus fight

As the surge in Australia's coronavirus cases seems to stabilise, the government has admitted it still has one concern.

After its National Cabinet meeting tonight, Australia's governments said the country could be living with the virus for at least six months and it still wasn't clear where some cases had come from.

"The Chief Medical Officer's advice is that following the scaled up social distancing measures over the last week, Australia has now achieved significant behavioural change and that the message to 'stay at home unless doing limited essential activities' is being heeded," the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement.

"It is clear the epidemiology curve is beginning to flatten. But it is too early to determine whether such movements will be significant or sustained.

"Stronger adherence to social distancing and new quarantine arrangements for returned travellers will take a number of days to show maximum effect.

"The biggest single concern remains the evidence of cases where there are no known local links."

Earlier tonight, Professor Brendan Crabb from Melbourne's Burnet Institute said there were potentially hundreds of unknown cases in Australia right now.

"There are people in hospital who have had no contact with a traveller or a traveller's contact, that we know of," he told Four Corners.

"We assume they are representative of community transmission. The important thing is that they got their infection weeks ago or at least ten days or so ago.

"So the numbers, if you extrapolate, I would expect are in the hundreds, if not 1,000 or so people out there in the community."

Virus ‘may not peak until November’ in NSW

Increased social isolation to combat COVID-19 in NSW could shift the peak period of infection to early October with intensive care units at their busiest in mid-November, expert modelling suggests.
But even if restrictions on movement reduce the reproduction rate to 1.6 – meaning each individual with the disease infects 1.6 others – the state’s ICU capacity could still be overwhelmed, an article published in the Medical Journal of Australia found.
“Under the scenario of increased social isolation, the peak infection will shift to early October and peak ICU utilisation will shift to mid-November and would be around one-third the size of the business-as-usual peak,” the authors wrote.

At that point, some five per cent of the population could be symptomatic, with more than 14,000 people in hospital across NSW and 5100 patients in intensive care.

– Julian Drape, AAP

$130 billion wage help 'will be paid back for years to come'

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has admitted the government's historic $130 billion wage support package will be something that will take years to pay off.

"This will be paid back for years to come. There's no secret in that," Mr Frydenberg told ABC's 7.30.

"Of course, we will enter into discussions with the credit rating agencies over due course.

"Australia has entered into this crisis from a position of economic strength. Our debt to GDP ratio is around 20 per cent. That's a quarter of what it is in the United Kingdom, and in the United States and one seventh as Japan.

"That's given us the fiscal responsibility to respond. We have delivered the first balanced budget in 11 years. That's been important in allowing us to provide this level of support at a time of critical need."

30,000 businesses apply for $1,500 help within hours

More than 30,000 businesses have already registered for the $1,500 fortnightly payment announced by the government this afternoon.

The unprecedented $130 billion wage support package was announced by Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg just after 4pm today.

The wage support package will allow businesses and employers to apply for JobKeeper payments on behalf of their workers.

Everyone from full-time and part-time employees to casuals and sole traders will be eligible for the $1,500 fortnightly payment.

All of the 30,000 businesses that expressed interest in JobKeeper payments today will begin seeing money in their accounts in the first week of May, backdated to March 30.

Macca's staff angry after positive coronavirus test

Staff at a Sydney McDonald's claim they were left in the dark after one of their colleagues was diagnosed with coronavirus.

The fast food giant said it did not inform all of its 100 workers at McDonald's Gregory Hills, in Sydney's south-west, because NSW Health had given it the go-ahead to stay open.

“There is no suggestion the crew member was exposed to COVID-19 in the restaurant,” a McDonald's spokesperson said.

McDonald's also stopped diners from eating in on March 24.

At Macca’s, looking after our community is our number one priority, so in line with Government guidance, we’re making a few changes.

For the time being, you won’t be able to dine-in, but we’ll be here for you to walk in and takeaway, and via Drive-Thru & McDelivery. pic.twitter.com/hMUYylVFLU
— McDonald's Australia (@maccas) March 23, 2020

Despite that, a worker at the Gregory Hills Macca's told the ABC staff were refusing to show up for their shifts out of fear.

"I left the shift shaking, I was so scared," they said.

"There's a lot of workers who are really, really angry at (McDonald's) for not telling us."

The 20 out of 100 workers at the McDonald's that had had close contact with the infected crew member were told to self-quarantine.

However, because NSW Health said the McDonald's had met all of its hygiene standards, it was able to stay open and the remaining 80 staff did not need to be notified.

McDonald's sanitises its stores day and night, a spokesperson for the fast food giant confirmed.

NSW Police also visited the Sydney restaurant this morning and found it had complied with all restrictions.

Handy fact sheets on the JobKeeper allowance

If you're an employer or an employee and looking for all of the fine print on the new $1,500 JobKeeper payment, the government has done up two handy fact sheets.

For employers, you can get all your information here.

And for employees, you can read about how to access the money here.