As it happened: Victoria lockdown to be extended as state records six new local COVID-19 cases; state’s regional area restrictions eased

It’s been another day dominated by the pandemic... Here’s the highlights:

• Melburnians will remain in lockdown for an extra week. Slight (very slight) easing of restrictions include expanding the five-kilometre radius to 10 kilometres, and allowing year 11 and 12 students to return to school. Restrictions in regional Victoria will be eased on Friday, but no details were announced.

  

  Our cartoonist’s take on the day.Credit: Matt Golding

• Tensions have eased between the Victorian and federal governments over the fight for financial assistance. After days of debate it sounds like the might be some Commonwealth cash coming down the pipe.
• Labor continued its assault on the Coalition over the aged care vaccine rollout.
• NSW Health has contacted hundreds of people who attended potential sites of concern after a Victorian man visited the state’s south while potentially infectious. Also, Premier Gladys Berejiklian had her second AstraZeneca dose.
• Interesting revelations from senate estimates include the fact that only six instances of COVID-19 in hotel quarantine have resulted in wider community spread (0.0017 per cent of the 358,500 travellers through the system, if you’re wondering).

Below are the day’s best frames from Canberra. Tune in again tomorrow from 6.30am as Broede Carmody tells you everything you need to know. Goodnight!

Here’s a nice change of pace as we wind down the blog for the day.

“Although our story is one of pain and sorrow – we are still here, yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Standing tall, proud and strong – standing right here, where we belong.”

With these words, TV presenter Jarron Andy, a Waanyi, Djiru, Kuku Yalanji and Yindinji man, read a poem to open the first dedicated Indigenous runway at Australian Fashion Week on Wednesday.

History-making ... The finale of the First Nations Fashion and Design show at Australian Fashion Week.Credit: Getty

And, echoing the poem, many were moved to tears by the finale but also left wondering why it took this long for Indigenous brands to step into the spotlight at the country’s premier fashion event.

Grace Lillian Lee, an artist, curator and designer who coordinated the show of seven designers through her organisation, First Nations Fashion + Design, said the all-Indigenous cast and crew were “overwhelmed with joy about the beginning of what we see is a real change in the fashion industry”.

Read more here.

Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas says his federal counterpart Josh Frydenberg has indicated the Commonwealth is “prepared to consider” extra support for Victorians who are losing income during the state’s two-week lockdown.

Mr Pallas toned down his language tonight following his meeting with the federal treasurer, after slamming Canberra on Sunday for initially refusing to provide financial assistance to Victorian businesses and employees.

Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas has vented his frustration at the Morrison government this week.Credit: Getty

“[The meeting] went better than the last few we’ve had, and there’s a general recognition the problems the state is confronting are substantial and the state government is making a substantial contribution,” Mr Pallas told ABC Radio Melbourne.

“I just reminded the federal treasurer Victoria has done most of the heavy lifting - it’s not Victoria’s fault, it’s not Victorians’ fault we’re dealing with the leakage out of hotel quarantine in South Australia.”

Mr Pallas said Mr Frydenberg indicated he was considering the state government’s position and that he would let them know “in due course”.

“There was an indication they were prepared to consider it.”

While the Victorian government has resigned itself to the fact Canberra will not revive JobKeeper, Mr Pallas said he urged the Commonwealth to consider that level of contribution, which was $1500 per fortnight.

Earlier today Mr Frydenberg declared he was open to reconsidering after initially ruling out extra support.

About 15 per cent of vaccines available in NSW have not been administered, with about 143,600 doses still available as of May 31.

NSW had administered 418,996 vaccines as of that date, from 562,640 available (or 74.5 per cent). The utilisation rate was about 76 per cent for the week of April 26. The rates take into account a small amount that may be wasted at clinics.

Ms Berejiklian said today it was critical to have as many people vaccinated as soon as possible.

The NSW Premier at a vaccination update earlier today. Credit: Nick Moir

“What we need to do is use up all the AstraZeneca vaccine we have available to us. We know supply chains are getting disrupted and while we are told there will be extra doses of Pfizer at some stage at end of year that’s not assured.

Ms Berejiklian said about 60,000 to 70,000 AstraZeneca doses were administered last week through GPs.

“We are far from over. These virulent variants of the virus have been around for a long time,” she said.

“The federal government has made clear to us to use all the doses available. We don’t know what is around the corner. We don’t know beyond the next six weeks how many doses we are getting of anything. We need to vaccinate as many of our population as safely as possible.”

We’ve got the data on hotel quarantine leaks that was tabled in senate estimates a little earlier. There are a few interesting points to highlight:

• Western Australia and NSW have both had six instances of COVID-19 being transmitted in hotel quarantine. WA has quarantined more than 40,000 people, while NSW has quarantined the bulk of return travellers (about 3000 people each week)
• WA’s Pan Pacific hotel has had three COVID-19 leaks alone, including the most recent instance this week
• Queensland’s Grand Chancellor hotel has also had two leaks

As the earlier post noted, a “leak” from quarantine includes instances where the virus only spreads to other travellers in neighbouring rooms. Only nine of the 21 hotel transmissions went into the community.

We know Western Australia has removed two hotels – Four Points and the Mercure – from quarantine use and halved its weekly intake of international arrivals to 530 after a review of its quarantine system.

Since January this year, all hotel quarantine leaks bar one have been “variants of concern”. It’s also interesting that while transmission to quarantine workers has reduced this year, transmission between travellers appears to have increased.

Chief Medical Officer Professor Paul Kelly is back in senate estimates this afternoon and got straight into explaining the country’s hotel quarantine system.

Here’s the breakdown since March last year:

• There have been 358,500 overseas arrivals who have entered the quarantine program
• About 3900 of those returned travellers have tested positive
• There have been 21 cases of transmission from hotel quarantine
• Nine of those cases leaked outside the hotel
• Only seven* cases led to wider community spread, meaning beyond the household of either the worker or person who was released from quarantine

Professor Kelly at a senate hearing in March. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Four of those breaches into the community have occurred since February this year. Each of those outbreaks involved a so-called “variant of concern”, such as the Indian strain.

There are also some outbreaks, including the one in Sydney’s northern beaches, that aren’t included in that tally. While health officials believe it’s most likely linked to return travellers, that was never definitively established.

Professor Kelly also provided a more detailed table of the hotel quarantine leaks, including which states each leak occurred in. (Stay tuned for a fancy graphic on this very soon...)

In terms of the future of quarantine though, it sounds like the 14-day hotel quarantine system is here to stay for at least the near future.

“We’re looking now at what might be done differently once the vaccination rolls out further, and particularly [for] people that are crossing the border who have been vaccinated,” he said.

“But for now that two weeks has remained solid. That’s been a key component.”

*This post has been amended to change the number of quarantine hotel breaches that federal health authorities said led to wider community spread. Professor Kelly initially told the hearing there were six instances but has since corrected the record to note there have been seven.

While we’re on the topic, federal health and safety investigators are still looking into whether Parliament House is a safe workplace in the wake of the alleged rape perpetrated against former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins in the office of then-Defence Minister Linda Reynolds.

In Senate estimates on Tuesday the head of the federal regulator Comcare, Sue Weston, said her agency was still looking into the matter.

But she deflected questions about what stage that investigation is at, who it has interviewed, or what conclusions it is likely to make.

“We have an open monitoring compliance activity in relation to that matter and we continue to make our inquiries,” Ms Weston said.

“I’m not in a position to give advice about who or when or whatever we will be interviewing. We continue our work and we will be able to use the information that we gather through that process and potentially other processes that are ongoing.”

More information emerged in estimates today about the timeline surrounding the alleged rape of former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins in March 2019.

Last week, it came out that staff from the offices of Ms Higgins’ then-boss Linda Reynolds, Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Alex Hawke and the Department of Finance met on April 4, 2019 to discuss sacking the alleged perpetrator.

He was formally terminated from his job with Senator Reynolds on April 5, 2019.

Brittany Higgins speaks to the media after meeting with the Prime Minister Scott Morrison in April.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

Ms Higgins had previously said she understood the man was sacked on March 26 before she was asked by the chief of staff to explain what they were doing in the minister’s office late at night.

Today in estimates, Defence associate secretary Katherine Jones said the departmental liaison officer (DLO) working in Senator Reynolds’ office had said at the time they believed the man was “no longer employed in the office” as of March 26, 2019.

“We were advised by the DLO in the office on the 26 March that they had recovered the [department’s] iPhone and the iPad from the individual,” she said. “We were advised that his employment had ceased.”

Circling back to an interesting revelation out of senate estimates this morning.

It’s now common practice across the country for aged care residents diagnosed with COVID-19 to be transferred to hospital, Department of Health secretary Professor Brendan Murphy says.

“People with COVID are now uniformly being transferred out into hospitals if they test positive,” he told the committee hearing.

Professor Murphy, centre, revealed the new national approach. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Last year, the broad practice was to keep elderly residents infected with COVID-19 in their facilities.

Throughout Victoria’s second wave, roughly 2000 residents were diagnosed with the virus, and 655 of those people died. The Victorian government estimates that of the 2599 clinical healthcare workers who acquired COVID-19 in healthcare settings, 63 per cent of those infections were acquired in aged care, and half of all those infections were in aged or disability care workers.

“Aged care facilities are people’s residences, they are not hospitals,” Professor Murphy said.

Greens Senator Rachel Siewert said residents were still being asked if they wanted to be transferred, and Professor Murphy said that was because it was important to get consent.

“Early on in the pandemic, particularly in Victoria, many residents, particularly those who were close to end of life, elected to stay there,” he said. “The public health advice now is that there is a very strong encouragement of the families to consent to transfer for public health reasons.”

Professor Murphy said all states and territory public health systems have agreed to that new process.

“What happens if somebody says ‘No, we want them to stay in the aged care facility’?” Senator Siewert asked.

“The public health unit would work with the family to convince them it’s in the best public health interest of the community for them to be transferred,” Professor Murphy said.

Aged care and disability workers will go to the front of the COVID-19 vaccination queue in Queensland, with the state government stepping in to speed up the roll-out.

Health Minister Yvette D’Ath said all aged care workers in Queensland would be offered the Pfizer vaccine, regardless of their age.

Ms D’Ath says aged care and disability workers will go to the front of the queue.Credit: Getty Images

“We can’t wait any longer,” she said. “We want them to get Pfizer because we know you can be fully vaccinated in three weeks instead of three months if they were to go and get AstraZeneca.“

The move follows Victoria which yesterday introduced a fast-track scheme allowing workers in either sector to jump the queue at state-run centres and gain VIP access to a vaccine dose.

Just 11 per cent of staff in nursing homes in Australia have had a first vaccine shot.

Read more here.