NSW's hotel quarantine process is being given a real test this week after 44 new infections picked up in the system over the past four days alone.
Thursday saw the biggest rise in cases from overseas travellers so far this week, with 15 new infections being detected.
Monday saw eight cases, Tuesday saw 12, and Wednesday saw nine new infections being detected.
The rise in infections comes amid an increase in concern over the use of hotels in densely populated cities to house returning travellers – as new variants spread at an alarming pace in other nations like India and Brazil.
Michael Toole, a Professor of International Health at the Burnet Institute, wrote a piece for The Conversation saying it's "time to move quarantine out of city hotels" – after more than a dozen COVID leaks in six months.
This live blog is now close. Read below for the day's developments here in Australia and across the globe.
Updates
COVID breach at Brisbane Airport
A major alert has been issued after a two passengers who’d flown in from high-risk Papua New Guinea were accidentally allowed into a green zone of Brisbane Airport.
The pair dined at the airport’s Hudson Cafe for about an hour and half, before using the toilets and visiting a second retail outlet.
An initial review of CCTV indicates that the red zone passengers were allowed into the green zone at 9:55am, spending just under two hours there before they were found by Brisbane Airport staff and returned to the red zone.
In a statement Brisbane Airport said it was working with authorities to investigate the circumstances of the breach.
More than 200 Victorians have been urged to get tested for coronavirus after a sudden and unexpected surge of viral fragments in wastewater.
Health authorities have contacted 246 people living in Melbourne’s western and northwestern suburbs for testing.
It comes after dozens of new suburbs in the city were listed as at-risk on Thursday, adding to the growing list of suburbs where COVID-19 fragments have been found in recent days.
Although the department initially said the detection of fragments was likely due to viral shedding after the infectious period, stronger action was necessary because a known positive COVID-19 case had been in the community.
It comes after scandal-plagued Liberal backbencher Laming hung up on Karvelas yesterday amid questioning about his empathy training and the allegations against him.
Referencing the fiery interview, Karvelas posed to Birmingham: "Are you comfortable having him in your party room given his lack of remorse?"
Minister for Finance Simon Birmingham. Picture: NCA Newswire
Birmingham responded: "I think they clearly were failures of behaviour, and I think all of his colleagues expect that in the time between now and the next election, he lives up to a higher standard and that's what we will all be expecting of him." He went on to say that while he didn't hear the interview, it seemed "strange" that Laming hung up.
Speaking today, Mr Skerritt refused to comment on the individual diagnosis of the men for confidentiality reasons, but revealed both had "various clotting disorders".
"I don't want to talk about what individual patients had, they had various clotting disorders, there is a range of clotting disorders from deep vein thrombosis… through to pulmonary embolism, through to clots in the intestines and clots in the brain… our job is to unravel whether there is any association with vaccination, so far, globally, there is not an overall association rather than this rare condition it is a very rare and specific syndrome," he said.
Professor John Skerritt. Picture: NCA Newswire
He also warned the public from drawing any conclusions from the cases, while highlighting that the NSW deaths are still under investigation.
“The current evidence does not suggest a likely association,” he said.
He continued: “We do have to remember that sadly, every week in Australia 3000 people die of all sorts of causes… 50 Australians each day report to hospitals and doctors with serious blood clots from a range of activities, coming from no reason at all, and almost all of them have no relationship to vaccines.
"It is one of the more significant causes of death in this country."
Toy that put 6yo in ICU pulled from shelves
Theme park giant Sea World has pulled a toy that is being blamed for putting a six-year-old boy on life support in Queensland Children's Hospital.
Deklan was critically injured on Anzac Day at his Nerang home after using the toy, and has remained on life support since.
Doctors overnight have told his distraught mother Lauren Babington the machines keeping her son alive will be turned off within 48 hours.
A Village Roadshow Theme Parks spokesman said the company was “distressed” to learn about Deklan’s tragic accident.
– Additional reporting NCA NewsWire
Major changes proposed for our schools
Students being taught about the “invasion” experience of Indigenous Australians at the hands of European colonisation is one of the many changes proposed under a major shake-up of the national curriculum.
For primary school students, the syllabus will be simplified to ensure they have a solid grasp on foundational literacy and numeracy.
Huge adjustments to sex and relationship education – including more explicit guidance on the teaching of consent – have also been proposed, after a viral petition exposed the disturbing rate of sexual assault and harassment among Aussie high school students.
Disgraced MP's 'empathy training' an online course
Liberal MP Andrew Laming — who abruptly hung up during a fiery radio interview to discuss his ADHD diagnosis — has revealed his ‘empathy training’ ordered by the Prime Minister was only an online course.
When Scott Morrison ordered the Liberal backbencher to undergo empathy training over a string of public scandals he was originally expected to go to a rehab-style bootcamp interstate.
Picture: NCA NewsWire/Dan Peled
But the intensive empathy training the Prime Minister ordered Dr Laming to undertake appears to have been downgraded to an online course during the Brisbane lockdown.
The empathy training was a sore point during a spiky interview on ABC radio with Radio National’s Patricia Karvelas after news.com.au broke the story of his ADHD diagnosis on Wednesday.
Dr Laming’s fall from grace follows allegations he took a photograph of a Brisbane woman Crystal White on her knees in a “crouching position” filling a bar fridge at a landscaping supply company prompting her to make a police complaint.
– Samantha Maiden
Ben Roberts-Smith threatened to sue ex-wife
Ben Roberts-Smith threatened to sue his ex-wife as she gets set to testify against the decorated ex-soldier in his upcoming defamation battle.
The Victoria Cross recipient is suing The Age and Sydney Morning Herald over reports that alleged he committed war crimes during deployments in Afghanistan and punched his mistress in the face.
The former SAS soldier has denied the claims and is suing for aggravated damages.
There are no new locally transmitted cases of COVID-19 in Western Australia overnight, helping raise confidence that the latest hotel outbreak has been contained.
Premier Mark McGowan has also hinted that further easing of social distancing restrictions will be announced at a press conference later today.
There were also four cases from returned travellers in hotel quarantine
