Australia news LIVE: No change to Greater Sydney restrictions as NSW records 11 new local COVID-19 cases; Queensland records three new local cases

It’s been a huge day of blogging but now it’s time to bring things to a close. Thank you very much for joining us in our coverage of today’s major events. If you’re just tuning, here are a few key points to bring you up to speed.

• A Sydney lockdown is not on the cards after 11 new cases were announced this morning, although Premier Gladys Berejiklian said NSW was facing its “scariest period” of transmission in the pandemic so far.
• Ms Berejiklian tested negative to COVID-19 this morning after being deemed a casual contact of Nationals MP Adam Marshall, who tested positive to the virus this morning. Rapid testing has been conducted at NSW Parliament, which was operating with skeleton staff today.
• In response to the situation in Sydney, the Victorian government has classified the entirety of Greater Sydney and Wollongong as “red zones”, coming into effect at 1 am on Friday. The classification means people who aren’t residents of Victoria and have visited those areas will be barred from entering the state without an exemption.
• Meanwhile, two new cases have arisen in Melbourne after a resident tested positive for COVID-19 after arriving from Sydney on a Jetstar flight on Sunday. His boss has also since tested positive.
• Australia is one step closer to approving Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine, after the country’s medical regulator decided the company can now apply for provisional registration. The Therapeutic Goods Administration granted the vaccine provisional determination to Moderna on Thursday, and the regulator said in a statement it expects Moderna will submit its provisional registration application shortly.

It started with a radio interview three weeks ago. Speaking on ABC Melbourne, the broadcaster’s Coronacast host Norman Swan said three unnamed sources told him the same story about Australia’s apparent mishandling of a vaccine deal with Pfizer last year.

ABC’s Norman Swan stands by his reporting that the government botched a Pfizer deal in July last year, which was based on anonymous sources but denied by those in the meeting.  Credit: Janie Barrett/Meredith O’Shea

That account then made its way onto Twitter where, two weeks later, it rapidly spread. It then found a home in stories on an independent media site and grabbed the attention of Labor.

It culminated with Victorian Acting Premier James Merlino repeating it as fact on Tuesday, and again on Wednesday.

“Our nation had a sliding doors moment last July. Last July, there was an offer of Pfizer to the Commonwealth government that would be enough for our country and they didn’t take it up,” he said.

But the story has been denied by Pfizer. The federal government categorically says it is not true, and senior Department of Health bureaucrats who were involved in the Pfizer deal gave evidence to a parliamentary committee that no such deal was on offer.

Rachel Clun has the rundown

In more worrying news from Melbourne, the owner of the dry cleaner whose employee is connected to the Sydney outbreak has tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the cases related to the business to two.

The 61-year-old owner of Sandringham Dry Cleaners on Bay Road, who lives in Burwood East and is the boss of the Melbourne man who tested positive after a trip to Sydney, is due to be transferred to a quarantine hotel to isolate, Nine News reports.

His four family members have also been tested, are isolating and are awaiting their results. The first positive case connected to the dry cleaner, a man who lives in Oakleigh, may have had contact with as many as 100 people over the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday that he worked, his boss says.

The business was operating a QR code system, which they intend to pass to the government. The man said he doesn’t have any symptoms.

Victoria’s COVID-19 commander, Jeroen Weimar, said the Oakleigh man arrived on a flight from NSW at 5.30pm on June 20.

“We are working through the details of his movements and there will be a small number of exposure sites,” he said.

Mr Weimar said the man had not yet been contacted by NSW contact-tracing workers and it was not known if he had been vaccinated.

“[There] could be a range of reasons for that,” he said.

“His information may not have been on that system, they may not have known he was there. We need to give everybody a bit of time to work through exactly what’s happened.”

Victorian authorities have released the flight details and an airport terminal exposure site linked to the man who returned from NSW and tested positive to COVID-19.

The 60-year-old man from the south-eastern suburb of Oakleigh flew to Melbourne on Jetstar flight JQ523, which departed at 5.30pm on Sunday.

The COVID-19 infected man flew to Melbourne on a Jetstar flight.Credit: Louie Douvis

The man also attended terminal 4 at the airport between 6.55pm-7.40pm.

The Oakleigh man travelled to his home before working during the week at a Sandringham dry cleaning store. He began feeling sick on Tuesday night and was tested on Wednesday morning.

People are generally infectious - meaning they can pass the virus onto others - about 48 hours before displaying symptoms.

The man was on a flight about 48 hours before feeling sick, meaning the flight is set to be a key focus of contact tracers’ efforts in coming days.

Covid19data.com.au has compared Sydney’s July Crossroads Hotel outbreak, the December Avalon event and the outbreak spawned by this month’s Bondi cluster, showing the total number of cases spurred from each over time, and the number of unlinked cases following each event.

As you can see below, on day nine of the Bondi outbreak there are a total of 48 positive COVID-19 cases. After the same number of days, there were 53 cases for the Crossroads outbreak and 120 for the Avalon event.

NSW Health has announced a number of new venues attended by COVID-19 cases in Sydney, including, as could have been predicted from this morning’s headlines, Parliament House.

After Agriculture Minister Adam Marshall returned a positive test this morning, anyone who was at Parliament House at any time on Tuesday, the day of the state budget announcement, must monitor for respiratory symptoms and get tested should they develop.

A masked officer at the entrance of NSW Parliament House.Credit: Kate Geraghty

A number of people who came into contact with Mr Marshall during that time have been tested and identified as either casual contacts, meaning they needed to isolate until they returned a negative test, or close contacts, meaning they will need to isolate for 14 days.

Specific advice has been issued for attendees at a Nationals budget dinner that night: anyone who was at the Stranger’s Dining Room within Parliament House between 6pm and 9pm should immediately isolate and get tested.

Two Darlinghurst venues have been identified as close contact sites, anyone who was at the following places at these times should immediately get tested and self-isolate for 14 days. They should also contact NSW Health on 1800 943 553 if they have not received an SMS.

• Frankie’s Bean Shop on Kings Cross Road on Monday from 10am to 11am or 1pm to 2pm
• Vinfafe Cafe on Bourke Street on Tuesday from 3.05pm to 3.45pm

An alert has also been issued for the Terry White Chemist within Rouse Hill Town Centre in north-west Sydney.

Anyone who there on Monday between 11.05am and 11.15am should immediately get tested and self-isolate until they receive a negative result.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says expert advice is not to vaccinate younger Australians first.

“That is not the advice of the Chief Medical Officer or the government’s medical advisors,” he told Question time earlier today.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison seen via video conference during Question Time.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

It was in response to a question from independent MP Zali Steggall, who asked whether NSW had enough Pfizer to vaccinate the state’s 20-39-year-olds, as she’d been told that would be the most effective way to stop the spread of COVID-19.

“Can you confirm that NSW has sufficient Pfizer capacity to immediately vaccinate this cohort?” she said.

Epidemiologist Mary-Louise McLaws has said several times that people in their 20s and 30s should be prioritised over those aged 40 to 60, arguing younger people are the ones most likely to spread the virus.

“The group that we need to focus on with a limited supply of Pfizer need to be the 20 to 39-year-olds. They’re the ones that are about 40 per cent of all caseload,” she told this masthead.

But the Prime Minister said that age group was not a priority.

“The priority cohort groups of people were set out in the national vaccination strategy which went through National Cabinet, went through our own Cabinet,” he said.

“Those priorities were set by the medical professionals advising the Commonwealth, but not just those medical advisors, Mr Speaker, but also the chief health officers of all the states and territories.”

If you’re interested in more on the age debate, The Age’s Health Editor Aisha Dow took a deep dive into it in this week’s Examine newsletter, where experts argue there is good reason for protecting older Australians first. Read the full newsletter here.

Australia will not need the AstraZeneca vaccine from October except by request, as most Australians over the age of 60 are expected to be vaccinated by then.

From October to December, 27.6 million doses of Pfizer will be delivered to help immunise the population against the coronavirus, with Commonwealth modelling showing the AstraZeneca vaccine is unlikely to be needed in the last quarter of the year.

COVID-19 Taskforce Commander, Lieutenant-General John Frewen released the data on Wednesday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

The national vaccine rollout plan released on Wednesday afternoon reveals the locally made AstraZeneca vaccine will be phased out of use in Australia except by request after health authorities changed advice to limit its use to people older than 60 due to concerns about a rare blood clotting disorder.

COVID-19 Taskforce Commander Lieutenant-General John Frewen said he expected all people eligible for AstraZeneca to be vaccinated in the coming three months, but for anyone who still needed that vaccine later in the year doses would be made available.

“For all of those people and cohorts that AstraZeneca is preferred, we think they will have received their AstraZeneca, before the fourth quarter,” he said on Wednesday afternoon.

Read the full story here

Controversial Nationals MP George Christensen, however, may not be riding off into the political sunset as soon as most predicted.

Government MP George Christensen in Parliament House earlier this year.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Mr Christensen, who has faced questions over the amount of time he has spent in the Philippines and lashed out at “activist mainstream media along with other leftist cultural institutions”, announced in April that he would leave politics.

Not if Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has anything to do with it.

“I’m doing everything I can to make sure the member for Dawson remains … the member of Dawson after the next election because of the advocacy that he has done,” Mr Joyce said in question time.

Whether that was a slip of the tongue or an earnest vow is a little unclear.

Back to Question Time, where the Minister for Veteran’s Affairs has given an answer in the chamber that sounds a lot like a farewell.

Darren Chester was a strong supporter of former Nationals leader Michael McCormack before he was ousted by Barnaby Joyce earlier this week.

Nationals MP Darren Chester speaking in the House of Representatives.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Mr Chester’s ministry is widely expected in Canberra to be a casualty of his loyalty to Mr McCormack.

Speaking with a bit of emotion in his voice, Mr Chester spent most of his four minutes praising what Australia’s troops and veterans have done, rather than his own accomplishments.

“Despite the shenanigans seen in this place, this chamber respects your services,” Mr Chester said.

“It understands the freedoms we exercise in this place every day were secured through your enormous sacrifice through many generations and also recognised the vigilance of today’s servicemen and women and we offer you a very simple thank you for your service.”