As it happened: Five Omicron COVID-19 variant cases in Australia; PM calls rapid national cabinet meeting; Victoria, NSW consider reintroducing mandatory quarantine

Thanks for following our live news coverage today. Here's a recap of some of the headlines:

• There are now five cases of the Omicron COVID variant in Australia. Four of the cases are in NSW and one is in the Northern Territory. All five cases are in government-managed quarantine. The Commonwealth and NSW, Victorian and ACT governments are deliberating about whether extend the 72-hour home isolation period for all overseas arrivals.
• NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet will argue for a proportionate approach in tomorrow’s national cabinet meeting with the Prime Minister and state leaders.
• Victorian health authorities say genomic sequencing shows a person suspected of having the Omicron strain of coronavirus who visited the state does not have the new variant. The state’s Health Department told The Age on Monday evening that genomic sequencing results had been returned for a confirmed case originating from a country of concern who travelled to Victoria from NSW.
• The new variant has rattled the travel industry and threatens to set back its pandemic recovery just as airlines, agents and tourism operators were preparing for a summer without border restrictions or quarantine. Leading travel agents have reported a dip in bookings since Friday as customers waited to see if Australia would reintroduce harder quarantine requirements for inbound travellers.
• Australians could go to a federal election in early May under a plan revealed on Monday to bring forward next year’s federal budget so Prime Minister Scott Morrison can launch a campaign against Labor on economic management.

Victorian health authorities say genomic sequencing shows a person suspected of having the Omicron strain of coronavirus who visited the state does not have the new variant.

The state’s Health Department told The Age on Monday evening that genomic sequencing results had been returned for a confirmed case originating from a country of concern who travelled to Victoria from NSW.

The department said the case does not have the Omicron variant, and it would provide new advice with already identified close contacts.

Health authorities had said earlier on Monday that a positive COVID-19 case who arrived in Sydney from a country of concern visited Victoria for a short trip before returning to NSW.

The individual was questioned about their movements and on Monday authorities said a number of close contacts had been identified and told to isolate for 14 days.

As yet, no travellers returning to from countries of concern Victoria have tested positive for the new strain.

ABC boss David Anderson says the broadcaster will face a $15 million hole if the government does not renew its funding through the “enhanced news-gathering” (ENG) program next year, as he confirmed the ABC was poised to sign a content deal with Facebook under news media bargaining laws.

Speaking at a Senate estimates hearing on Monday, Mr Anderson said he was operating on public assurances from Communications Minister Paul Fletcher that money received through the Facebook deal would not impact the ABC's budget. He did not disclose how much the deal was worth, but said he hoped to sign it within the next 48 hours.

ABC Managing Director David Anderson during a Senate hearing at Parliament House todayCredit: Alex Ellinghausen

"I think that if the enhanced news funding was not continued after nine years, I think it's a $15 million problem for the whole of the ABC," Mr Anderson said.

"I'm operating on from the fact that this will sit on top of what we have as ENG funding."

The federal government sets the ABC’s funding in three-year blocks, with the next triennium to be determined at the budget next year, which has nominally been set for March 29. It handed the ABC $44 million through the ENG fund in 2019, supplementing its annual budget of about $1 billion, but the initiative is due to expire next year unless it is extended again.

Senator Jane Hume, who represents the communications portfolio at estimates, said any extension of the fund would be announced at next year's budget.

Mr Anderson declined to speculate on whether any jobs would be at risk if the fund was not extended.

"Taking $15 million out of the budget will have an effect on many things, no matter how you slice it," he said. "We would have to be quite judicious about how we approach that."

"As I said, I'm not expecting that, not planning for that at the moment."

The ABC has already signed a similar commercial deal with Google under the bargaining laws enacted earlier this year, as have other media outlets including Nine Entertainment Co, owner of this masthead.

NSW, Victoria and the ACT are working with the federal government as they review whether to extend the 72 hours of home quarantine that all international arrivals are required to undertake.

“They're reviewing that, and they're working with us,” Health Minister Greg Hunt said this afternoon on Sydney radio station 2GB.

“We certainly wouldn't rule out the fact that that period may be rolled over. And I think it's important to provide that guidance.

“My understanding is that they're certainly considering that. They're doing it in conjunction with Commonwealth officials.”

Mr Hunt said chief medical officer Paul Kelly was also keeping a watching brief through the National Incident Centre on whether travel restrictions should be placed on more countries.

“So if more changes are required, they'll be done. But that's about working on a country-by-country basis.”

Could the emergence of Omicron – possibly a more infectious, less virulent variant of coronavirus – be a good thing for public health? Some of our leading infectious disease experts, while stressing it is too early to make a call, are daring to hope.

Since the start of the pandemic, epidemiologists have thought this might be our way out, that the virus could eventually mutate into a more benign form that continues to spread but kills fewer people and sends fewer of us to hospital.

This is what happened to the H1N1 influenza virus and it may explain the origins of the common cold – a coronavirus some virologists have linked to the deadly Russian Flu pandemic of the late 19th century.

The early indications from South Africa, where Omicron already appears to be replacing Delta as the dominant strain, is that the radically mutated Omicron could be the SARS-CoV-2 variant experts have been waiting for.

“We don’t know yet, but there are a few clues coming out that it may be less virulent,” says University of Melbourne epidemiologist Tony Blakely. “Whilst it is all a bit nerve-racking at the moment, it might work out to our advantage.”

Deakin University epidemiologist Catherine Bennett, while similarly circumspect, says the evidence so far gives cause for optimism.

“There is a possibility that we are seeing a more infectious and less virulent version of the virus, which would be one of those steps along a happier route to living with the virus,” she says. “We’ve got as many signals that it might as OK as we’ve got signals that it might be a bit of a worry.”

Read more here.

Two additional cases of the new Omicron variant of concern have been confirmed in recent international arrivals in Sydney.

The two cases, who were reported as suspected cases of the variant this morning, arrived on Singapore Airlines flight SQ211 yesterday and tested positive on arrival.

People on this flight are considered close contacts of a COVID-19 case and will be contacted by NSW Health.

The travellers had both recently been in southern Africa and were fully vaccinated. They have been in NSW Health's Special Health Accommodation since disembarking the plane, as has been the procedure for all arrivals from southern Africa since Saturday.

Yesterday, two people who had recently been in South Africa and caught a Qatar Airways flight from Doha to Sydney, landing on Saturday, were confirmed as the first cases of Omicron in Australia. Federal Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly said this morning the pair were young and asymptomatic.

There are now five confirmed cases of the Omicron variant in Australia, including a man who arrived at the Northern Territory’s Howard Springs facility on a repatriation flight from Johannesberg on November 25.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has expressed concern about the number of international travellers not in hotel quarantine across the country before a special meeting of national cabinet to address the risk posed by the emerging Omicron COVID-19 variant.

Ms Palaszczuk told reporters in Brisbane she took comfort in the fact hotel quarantine was still mandatory for international arrivals in Queensland, unlike NSW and Victoria which have moved to isolate recent arrivals until more can be learned about the situation.

But she said she was a “bit worried” about the number of travellers beyond quarantine across the country.

“So I’d like some answers on that tomorrow,” she said.

“I will be attending the national cabinet meeting tomorrow that the Prime Minister has convened and hopefully we’ll get an update on this new variant.”

“We have Wellcamp being built, we always knew that a quarantine facility could be needed in the future as well, which is why we went ahead and did that,” she said, in reference to the state’s go-it-alone privately built regional quarantine hub. “That facility will be ready by the end of the year.”

The World Health Organisation on Friday labelled the new coronavirus strain Omicron a “variant of concern”.

Australia’s national cabinet will meet this week to discuss the nation’s response, which could include extending quarantine for arrivals.

While the variant has sparked concern among a world fatigued by COVID-19, scientists and leading medical officials are saying it’s too soon to know how dangerous the variant is.

Early indications are that the disease may be causing mild to moderate illness in vaccinated people.

Federal health reporter Rachel Clun joins Bianca Hall to discuss Australia’s response to the threat posed by Omicron and how the new strain’s emergence highlights the urgency of vaccinating developing countries.

Overseas travellers will need to comply with the quarantine requirements of the state or territory in which they land before travelling to Victoria.

That means people landing in NSW and the ACT will need to quarantine for 72 hours and until November 30 respectively before entering Victoria.

Brett Sutton says some people in isolation may get released if the returned traveller does not have the Omicron strain of COVID.Credit: Justin McManus

Travellers coming from high-risk countries in southern Africa – which include South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique – have to quarantine for 14 days no matter where they land.

The Victorian Department of Health clarified the rules this afternoon, after confusion emerged over the possibility of transiting through airports in other states en route to Melbourne.

As of this afternoon, no arrivals to Victoria from high-risk countries had tested positive for the new strain. Health authorities were monitoring a confirmed COVID-19 case in NSW who visited Victoria while infectious having previously been to one of the high-risk countries.

In a statement, Victorian Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said several close contacts of the traveller have been instructed to isolate for 14 days.

“Should genomic sequencing results indicate the case does not have the Omicron variant, the department may retract close contact advice and provide updated advice to contacts,” he said.

Parliament has just set its sitting calendar for next year and it provides a peek at the government’s thinking on the election.

There are just seven sitting days in February and three in March in the schedule, including a budget for March 29.

Who will be our next Prime Minister? Credit: Fairfax Media

It will be the first time the Budget has been delivered in March, with Josh Frydenberg also having delivered the previous earliest budget (April 2, 2019).

That leaves a lot of time for an election to be held in May off the back of whatever the government announces in that unusually-timed budget.

The last two weeks of April are clear of Parliament as is early May. If the election is called, expect the two sitting weeks scheduled for late May to disappear.

It's the farthest out that a prime minister has tipped the date of a federal election since Julia Gillard declared the date of the 2013 election, though she was rolled before it happened.

It's all panning out about how my colleagues Shane Wright and Rob Harris reported way back in February.

Read more here.