As it happened: ACT border partially reopens to Greater Sydney as NSW records five new local COVID-19 cases; Victoria implements travel permit system

Catch Wednesday's rolling coronavirus coverage here: Call to pause AstraZeneca vaccine rollout plan; Victorians, Sydneysiders demand answers over border closures

Thanks very much for reading along today. As usual we'll be back early tomorrow morning to cover the day in COVID-19 developments.

A brief round-up of today's stories:

• The partner of the Brisbane quarantine hotel cleaner who contracted the highly infectious UK COVID-19 variant has tested positive and may have been infectious in the community for two days. Two new locations including a Bunnings Warehouse and bottleshop in Brisbane’s south have been added to the city's list of exposure sites as a result.
• Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said she wouldn't be surprised if more close contacts of the infected hotel quarantine cleaner tested positive.
• Victoria recorded its sixth consecutive day without a new locally acquired case.
• NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the most important rule for Sydneysiders to follow at the moment is the limit on household visitors. She pleaded for more people to get tested, after five new cases of community transmission emerged.

• The ACT has partially relaxed its border restrictions for Greater Sydney, with residents of just 11 local government areas in the region to remain barred from entry to the territory.
• Coronavirus outbreaks linked to quarantine hotel breaches continue to cause chaos for interstate travellers. Sydneysiders cannot travel to Queensland or Victoria. Similarly, Victorians in Sydney or Greater Brisbane are barred from returning to their home state without an exemption.
• Victoria's Police Minister, Lisa Neville, says the 1200-odd tennis players arriving in Melbourne for the 2021 Australia Open will be subject to the "strictest rules for tennis anywhere in the world" in their hotel quarantine.

Stay safe, take care and goodnight.

Some of the researchers who had been working on the UQ COVID-19 vaccine have turned their focus back to their "day job" of trying to rid the world of deadly mosquito-borne diseases.

Associate Professor Daniel Watterson from UQ’s School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences was one of the designers of the "molecular clamp" technology that was the key technology behind UQ’s vaccine.

The 1G5.3 antibody (green) bound to both Zika (red) and dengue (blue) NS1 proteins.Credit: Professor Daniel Watterson/ UQ

The vaccine did not progress past the first stage of human trials, however the molecular clamp was shown to be effective in creating spike proteins for vaccines, and is expected to be used again in the future.

While the halting of the team’s vaccine candidate was disappointing, Professor Watterson and his colleagues have now published research into a different type of vaccine, which could have major ramifications for millions of people.

"This research was actually our day job, and then the need for a COVID vaccine suddenly arose and we threw all our effort into that," he said.

The new treatment the team has developed targets flaviviruses, such as dengue fever, Zika and West Nile, which are usually transmitted by mosquitoes.

Dengue alone affects an estimated 390 million people across the world every year, with half a million on average developing the serious form of the disease that can be fatal.

Previous vaccine treatments for the viruses targeted the main body of the viral particle, but could also sometimes enhance the infection.

Read the full story here.

The Australian Grand Prix has found a new date on the 2021 calendar and will go ahead in November "subject to prevailing public health conditions".

The Australian Grand Prix.Credit: AFR

Normally, the season-opening event for the Formula One season, it became clear in recent weeks that the Melbourne race would have to be postponed due to the stringent quarantine conditions required by Victorian health authorities.

However, the Victorian government has confirmed a new target date later in the year: November 21.

"The Andrews Labor government, Formula 1 management and the Australian Grand Prix Corporation have reached agreement on the one-off 21 November date for 2021, acknowledging that the effects of the coronavirus pandemic made the usual season-opening March date unrealistic," said a media release from Sports Minister Martin Pakula.

Read more here.

Taiwan on Tuesday reported its first locally transmitted cases of COVID-19 since December 22 - a doctor in a hospital who was treating an infected patient, and a nurse who is the doctor's girlfriend.

Until last month's domestic transmission the island had not reported any local cases since April 12, with the vast majority of infections in international traveller quarantine.

Commuters in Taipai in Taiwan.Credit: AP

Taiwan has kept the pandemic well under control thanks to early and effective prevention methods and widespread mask-wearing. It has reported 839 cases, including seven deaths, with 101 in hospital being treated.

But Taiwan's government has watched nervously as imported cases rise, albeit at a far lower rate than in many other places.

"Of course, we really regret the hospital infection," Health Minister Chen Shih-chung told reporters.
"Our hospital control measures are extremely strict, but inevitably something may have been overlooked."

While the doctor had been treating a COVID-19 patient, his nurse girlfriend had not, Chen said.
A total of 464 contacts at the hospital have been screened with all returning negative tests, while another 42 people were in the process of being tested, he said.

All hospital workers will be tested again within three days, Chen said.

A bit of clarification for readers who have been in touch about the technicalities of Victoria's new "traffic light" permit system.

The Department of Health has advised that travellers from either green or orange zones are allowed to transit through Sydney or Brisbane airports on route to Melbourne.

For example this means someone currently staying in Townsville can fly to Brisbane and then on to Melbourne. Or in NSW, you can fly from Newcastle to Sydney, and then on to Melbourne.

Sydney and Brisbane are still both considered red zones, so anyone living or staying in those areas is still unable to enter Victoria.

The permission for transit through the airports comes with some conditions.

Transiting travellers must not leave the Sydney or Brisbane airports, practice social distancing, wear a mask indoors at all times and outdoors when not able to socially distance, while in a car with others outside your group and while on the aircraft.

US Representative Pramila Jayapal said she has tested positive for COVID-19 after being locked down in a room with Republican lawmakers who refused to wear masks as President Donald Trump's supporters laid siege to the US Capitol.

A Democrat from Washington state, Jayapal, 55, lambasted Republicans late on Monday and said many of them not only refused to wear a mask while stuck in the room for several hours but also mocked colleagues and staff when offered one.

Pramila Jayapal.Credit: Associated Press

"Too many Republicans have refused to take this pandemic and virus seriously, and in doing so, they endanger everyone around them," she said in a statement.

Jayapal, who is the second Democratic member of the US Congress to test positive since last Wednesday's storming of the Capitol by Trump's supporters, said she would work in isolation, in line with the guidance of the Capitol physician.

The attending physician for Congress, Dr Brian Monahan, said lawmakers who hid together for hours in a closed room to avoid the mob may have been exposed to the coronavirus.

Health officials have warned the attack would likely be a superspreader event, as lawmakers were isolated for hours while a violent crowd of mostly maskless Trump supporters roamed the halls and corridors in an unsuccessful bid to block lawmakers' certification of Joe Biden's presidential win.

Scott Morrison made a tough but necessary call one month ago to cancel support for an Australian vaccine because he wanted to maximise community confidence in the treatment of COVID-19.

Now the Prime Minister has another challenge in shoring up that confidence, only this time the threat comes from within his own ranks.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has refused to criticise backbench MPs George Christensen and Craig Kelly over their controversial Facebook posts.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has refused to criticise backbench MPs George Christensen and Craig Kelly over their controversial Facebook posts.

Liberal backbencher Craig Kelly has become a dangerous source of dubious advice and outright lies on social media at a time when the government wants full support for a mammoth effort to vaccinate almost everyone.

Kelly rails against the use of masks and calls them "child abuse" for schoolchildren when political leaders and health authorities are telling Australians to cover up.

Kelly urges the use of unproven drugs like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin when scientists have serious concerns about whether they work against the coronavirus.

In post after post on Facebook, he talks up these cures without any support for the major vaccines backed by scientists around the world after clinical trials have proven their success.

The effect is to sow doubt and confusion when the government wants confidence and clarity.

Yet Morrison and his cabinet ministers are too timid to call out the misinformation.

Asked on Tuesday whether he rejected Kelly’s claims, Health Minister Greg Hunt ducked the question and would not even mention the MP’s name.

When Acting Prime Minister Michael McCormack was asked about Kelly’s complaints about masks, he talked about the perils of censorship rather than rebuke the MP and back the public health advice.

This gentle treatment of misinformation has gone on too long.

Read the full analysis here.

Workers will soon learn whether they will be able to return to CBD offices next week, as the Victorian government faces pressure to get public sector staff back to their desks faster than planned.

Up to 50 per cent of private sector staff and 25 per cent of public sector employees were due to return to their workplaces this week, but the schedule was delayed by a week as a result of the Black Rock cluster.

Angelique is looking forward to permanently returning to the office full-time.Credit: Joe Armao

Jobs Minister Martin Pakula said on Tuesday an announcement on the updated plans would be made within days.

"A decision will be made in a timely way and I would hope that's within the next 24 to 48 hours," he said.

The return-to-work schedule was pushed back last Wednesday, when there were 28 active cases of COVID-19, and a man with no apparent link to the Black Rock cluster was diagnosed with the virus.

Although half of all private sector workers were due to return to the workplace from January 11, Victoria’s public service, the city’s largest employer, was only set to bring back a quarter of staff.

Fifty per cent of public servants would have been back at their desks from February 8 under the phased plan.

Opposition Leader Michael O’Brien on Tuesday pushed for the government to speed up the return of public servants, in line with the private sector.

“Small business is bleeding out there. Small business is desperate for workers to come back to the office and to do it safely,” Mr O’Brien said.

“If 50 per cent is safe for the private sector then 50 per cent is safe for the public sector too. The more workers we get back into the CBD, the more life our city will have back and the more jobs in small business we’ll be able to save.”

Read the full story here.

Several gorillas at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park have tested positive for the coronavirus in what is believed to be the first cases among such primates in captivity.

Some of the gorillas from San Diego Zoo in 2015.Credit: AFP

Lisa Peterson, the park’s executive director, told The Associated Press that eight gorillas at the park are believed to have the virus and several have been coughing.

It appears the infection came from a member of the park’s wildlife care team that also tested positive for the virus but has been asymptomatic.

Read the full story here.

NSW Health has issued an alert for a barbershop in Sydney's northern beaches which was visited by a confirmed case of COVID-19.

Anyone who attended The Groomsmen Barber Shop at Warriewood Square on Wednesday January 6, between 11.30am and 12pm, is considered a casual contact and must get tested immediately.

They must isolate until a negative result is received, and if any symptoms appear get tested and isolate again.