Coronavirus Australia live news: New Melbourne virus clusters dash hopes of significant reopening
Daniel Andrews warns the situation in Melbourne’s north may be worse than it appears, leaving a major reopening uncertain for Sunday’s expected announcement.
- Infectious commuter sets off warning
- Cluster casts reopening into doubt
- How to do away with lockdowns
- States, territories agree to Christmas reopening
- Europe in shutdown mode — again
Welcome to The Weekend Australian’s live coverage of the coronavirus crisis. The US has reached a one-day record high in new virus cases. A growing cluster in Melbourne’s northern suburbs may have put the city’s hoped-for reopening in doubt, while, Queensland and NSW have recorded consecutive days of zero infections.
Wall Street Journal 9.30pm: New US COVID-19 cases reach a one-day record
The number of new coronavirus cases reported in the US has hit a single-day record, as cases spread across communities in every region of the country including remote areas that hadn’t yet been hard hit.
The US reported 83,757 new cases on Friday local time, surpassing the previous high of 77,362 reported on July 16, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Daily new-case totals have risen for five straight days.
Since the pandemic began, more than 8.49 million infections have been reported in the U.S. and more than 223,900 Americans have died, according to Johns Hopkins data. World-wide, more than 42.2 million cases have been reported, and more than 1.14 million people have died.
“We are at a critical juncture in this pandemic, particularly in the northern hemisphere,” World Health Organisation Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a news conference on Friday. “The next few months are going to be very tough and some countries are on a dangerous track.”
Dr Tedros warned that “too many countries are seeing an exponential increase in cases”, bringing hospitals close to their operational capacity or even above it. “We urge leaders to take immediate action, to prevent further unnecessary deaths, essential health services from collapsing and schools shutting again,” he said.
Epidemiologists and public-health researchers have said a number of factors, from pandemic fatigue to the return of college students to campuses and more social gatherings, are contributing to the latest rise in cases. The recent increases are affecting broader swaths of the US than the northern spring and summer surges, when outbreaks were heavily concentrated in a handful of US states.
At least 1,145,847 people around the world have died from the outbreak since it emerged in China last December, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 10pm AEDT Saturday.
At least 42,262,290 cases of coronavirus have been registered, of which at least 28,754,900 are now considered recovered.
The tallies, using data collected by AFP from national authorities and information from the WHO, probably reflect only a fraction of the actual number of infections. Many countries are testing only symptomatic or the most serious cases.
On Friday, 6366 new deaths and 482,954 new cases were recorded worldwide. Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were United States with 880 new deaths, followed by India with 650 and Brazil with 571.
READ FULL REPORT here
Agencies 7pm: Poland’s President tests positive but ‘fine’
Poland’s President Andrzej Duda has tested positive for coronavirus, an aide said on Saturday, as the country faces a record rise in cases.
“Ladies and gentlemen, as recommended President @AndrzejDuda was tested yesterday for the presence of coronavirus. The result turned out to be positive. The President is fine,” Blazej Spychalski, secretary of state in the president’s office, said on Twitter.
While it was unclear when Mr Duda was infected, he had attended an investment forum in Tallinn on Monday where he met Bulgarian President Rumen Radev, who later went into quarantine.
Poland went into a “red zone” lockdown on Saturday, including the partial closure of primary schools and restaurants.
The move came as the EU country of 38 million people saw a new 24-hour record of 13,632 coronavirus cases on Friday.
Poles have been asked to work remotely if they can and primary schools are partly closed with only grades one to three attending classes.
Secondary school and university students switched to distance learning a week ago. All seniors over the age of 70 have been asked to stay home. Restaurants, cafes and pubs are only be able to serve take-away meals. Fitness clubs and pools are also closed.
Gatherings are limited to five people, with weddings banned and strict limits on the numbers of people allowed in shops, on public transport and at religious services.
Poland’s national stadium is being transformed into a field hospital for Warsaw and the government is building temporary medical facilities elsewhere, as the surge in coronavirus cases strains healthcare facilities to breaking point.mas/lc
AFP
ALSO READ: Europe in grip of new lockdowns
Anthony Piovesan 5.50pm: Warning after train commuter was infectious
A person travelled on Melbourne’s train network while infectious, prompting an urgent coronavirus warning from health officials.
The Victorian Department of Health announced a positive case travelled on Melbourne’s Craigieburn railway line on October 21 and 22, passing through Glenroy, North Melbourne and Yarraville between 6-6:45am. On the same days, a positive case also travelled on trains through Yarraville, North Melbourne and Oak Park between 1.15 – 2pm.
The Department of Health also warned an infectious person had visited Coles in Glenroy on October 20 between 12-12.15pm.
“If you visited any of these locations during the times outlined, remain alert for COVID-19 symptoms,” the department said.
UPDATED: Exposure sites
— VicGovDHHS (@VicGovDHHS) October 24, 2020
📠Coles Glenroy (20 Oct, 12pm-12:15pm)
📠Craigieburn Line (21 Oct)
- Case travelled on trains between Glenroy, North Melb & Yarraville (6am-6:45am)
- Case travelled on trains between Yarraville, North Melb & Glenroy (1:15pm-2pm)#COVID19Vic (THREAD 1/3) pic.twitter.com/NAuVRESGsR
It comes after Victoria recorded seven new virus cases and no further deaths on Saturday.
Four of the new coronavirus cases were detected in Melbourne’s north as the cluster linked to East Preston Islamic College continued to grow.
NCA NewsWire
READ EARLIER: Melbourne clusters ‘almost certain to grow’
Courtney Walsh 5.45pm: From $1bn blackhole to Brisbane bonanza
AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan has confirmed the league feared a loss of almost $1 billion for 2020 shortly after the season was suspended in March.
But the league’s ability to negotiate the coronavirus shutdown of Victoria, along with state border difficulties, to reach the end of the season has largely countered the deficit. The abridged season will conclude with a historic night grand final at the Gabba tonight between Richmond and Geelong.
From concerns of financial doom at the start of the season, McLachlan told club administrators this week that the league will walk away with a loss of about 10 per cent of the initial catastrophic estimate.
“In March, April, when the season stopped, we had a notional hole of about $965 million,” McLachlan told The Weekend Australian. “Through sacrifice and commitment from all parts of the industry and hard work and great partnership with our broadcasters and our sponsors, and the incredible loyalty of our members and supporters and the commitment to get this season away, the industry loss between the clubs and the AFL will be something under $100 million. It will be significantly lower and (that is) a credit to our players and our clubs and our supporters.”
Heavy rain and lightning has threatened to delay the start of the first AFL grand final to be played in Brisbane.
Follow our live coverage of the historic decider between Geelong and Richmond here.
Agencies 5.20pm: Biden pledges free vaccines for all if elected
Democrat Joe Biden says that if elected president he will mandate coronavirus vaccines be free for all Americans, part of a national strategy to “get ahead of this virus.” “Once we have a safe and effective vaccine, it has to be free to everyone — whether or not you’re insured,” Mr Biden said in a speech laying out his pandemic response plan just 11 days before the US presidential election.
President Donald Trump, who trails Mr Biden in the polls, has also stressed that a vaccine — which he says will be ready in the coming weeks — should be free.
But Democrats led by Mr Biden have hammered Mr Trump for failing to lay out and implement a nationwide response to a pandemic that has now killed more than 223,000 Americans.
“COVID-19 dwarfs anything that we’ve faced in recent history, and it isn’t showing any signs of slowing down. The virus is surging in almost every state,” Mr Biden said in a speech in Wilmington, Delaware.
“We’re more than eight months into this crisis and the president still doesn’t have a plan,” the 77-year-old former vice president said.
“He’s given up. He’s quit on you. He’s quit on your family. He’s quit on America.”
READ MORE: Why women will be America’s agents of change
Stephen Lunn 4.40pm: Heartbreaking rate of suicide ‘unacceptable’
Suicide was the leading cause of death among Australians aged 15 to 49 last year, with relationship issues one of the key drivers.
Over one-third of all deaths of people aged 15-24 in 2019 were due to suicide, new Australian Bureau of Statistics data reveals.
Overall there were 2502 male suicides and 816 female suicides, making suicide the 13th leading cause of death overall in 2019.
Spousal relationship problems were the third most common risk factor, identified among 25.9 per cent of all suicides.
Available 2020 data, including information from the Victorian Coroner, suggests no noticeable increase in suicides from 2019 despite the social limitations introduced due to COVID-19.
If you or anyone you know needs help contact: Lifeline: 13 11 14; or Beyond Blue: 1300 224 636
Read the full story here.
Anthony Piovesan 4pm: Melbourne gyms facing financial ruin
Reopening of Victorian gyms and fitness centres “won’t be enough”, with frustrated owners saying their businesses are on the verge of financial ruin and will need relief to continue operating.
Body & Soul Genesis Ballarat owner Mel Tempest said about 40 per cent of gym users across 84 fitness facilities in the Ballarat region had cancelled their gym memberships.
“When we do open our doors, we’ve got to have money to be able to do marketing and get people back into clubs,” she said.
“These clubs have had no income for six months – we can’t go to the bank for loans and get further into debt. We’ve just been forgotten.”
Gyms reopened after the first lockdown but were forced to close again before the start of Victoria’s second shutdown, and have not reopened since.
“Every club in regional Victoria wants to open in some sort of capacity,” Ms Tempest said.
“We opened before the second lockdown and have the booking app, swipe system, COVID management plans ready to go.”
Ms Tempest said every part of her club was taped off into 200 sqm areas, with just 20 people allowed in each.
“The majority of clubs did the same thing, despite having higher cases then as opposed to now – but now we’re in lockdown. It makes no sense,” she said.
Regional Victoria’s 14-day rolling virus average fell from 0.4 to 0.2 on Saturday – its lowest point since before the state’s second wave.
Premier Daniel Andrews had hinted at further easing restrictions on Sunday, but that plan has been thrown into doubt after coronavirus clusters connected to multiple schools across Melbourne’s north grew overnight.
“This second lockdown has almost been like a grieving process,” Ms Tempest said.
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Peter van Onselen 3.15pm: Morrison government ‘can’t do two things at once’
The return of parliament for the first full week of sittings post the budget saw the Prime Minister batting away questions as to why he still hadn’t established a federal integrity commission. Despite having committed to doing so nearly two years ago, shortly after becoming PM.
Scott Morrison claims that he and his government haven’t had the time they need to make it happen, using the floor of parliament to cite the pandemic as the reason. Given that he spent the full previous week in Queensland campaigning for the state LNP ahead of the election due at the end of this month, the hollowness of the excuse was there for all to see.
It has been a frequently used excuse in 2020. The pandemic has meant parliament couldn’t sit, we were told, the virtual world seemingly escaping the PM’s attention. Ironically on Wednesday morning this week he gave a speech about the importance of business embracing the digital world in the wake of COVID-19.
Nearly 12 months ago, federal Attorney-General Christian Porter received an exposure draft on legislation for an integrity commission, but this week he cited the need for extensive consultation before draft legislation could be presented to parliament. Again the pandemic was the excuse. Ain’t the virtual world grand. It really does seem that this male-dominated government can’t do two things at once.
Read Peter van Onselen’s full analysis here.
Christine Kellett 2.40pm: Melbourne clusters ‘almost certain to grow’
The set up of a pop-up testing site in Melbourne’s virus-hit northern suburb of Preston was delayed earlier today, as the Premier promised thousands of people would be screened.
The Herald Sun reports a tent was set up at 9.30am at the East Preston Islamic College and cars began queuing but it was a further two hours before staff were ready to begin testing.
At least one child has tested positive for COVID-19 at the school — which will be closed for two weeks — while more than 100 close contacts of the school have been ordered into quarantine.
Close contacts at Sirius College and Ilim College are also undergoing testing. A student at Croxton School in nearby Northcote also returned a positive test.
Premier Daniel Andrews said it was inevitable more cases would be detected as part of the cluster. Thousands of tests are still being processed, he said.
“Almost certainly we will get more cases out of these separate outbreaks,” Mr Andrews told a press conference on Saturday.
“The key point will be tomorrow and Monday and throughout the week, are they linked? Are they cases that can be, if you like, linked? If they’re not, if there are no linkages, if they’re not linked in any way, that speaks to the fact that there may be more virus in that northern part of the city than we would be comfortable with. It also speaks directly to the fact that if that is the case, then opening up can see case numbers explode.”
READ EARLIER: Andrews defends cluster response
David Charter 2.05pm: ‘Lingering cough’ keeps Melania off the trail
Melania Trump is resisting pleas from the president’s re-election team to help on the campaign trail as her counterpart, Jill Biden, keeps up an energetic schedule.
Mrs Trump, 50, accompanied her husband to Thursday’s televised debate, her first appearance since last month’s debate. She cited her convalescence from COVID-19 for pulling out of a rally in Pennsylvania on Tuesday. Her only speaking appearance linked to the election was at the Republican convention in August.
In contrast Joe Biden’s wife, who will accompany him to Pennsylvania today (Saturday), has held many online discussions and makes several solo trips a week. Mrs Biden, 69, was at four events in Michigan on Tuesday, two in Pennsylvania on Monday and two in Florida the Friday before.
Mrs Trump is breaking a long tradition of first ladies helping out on the stump, where they can appeal to women voters. Polls show that most female voters reject Mr Trump, and some in his team are said to be frustrated that they cannot persuade his wife to be more visible. “She’s wanted and needed. She doesn’t do [appearances],” a source told CNN.
She was announced as introducing Mr Trump at his rally in Erie on Tuesday but pulled out citing “an abundance of caution” over a lingering cough following her coronavirus diagnosis. Sources say she is more concerned with looking after the couple’s son, Barron, 14, who was mildly ill with the virus.
The Times
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Richard Lloyd Parry 1.15pm: COVID sends continent into a baby bust
It seemed to be one of the few good things likely to come out of the coronavirus – a baby boom in countries with shrinking populations as couples were forced into lockdown together.
However, the pandemic is having the opposite effect in many countries, as economic uncertainty and anxiety deter couples from having children.
Many countries, but especially in Asia, are struggling to stop a “baby bust” which threatens to add pressure on societies already hit by low fertility rates and declining populations. Singapore has one of the lowest birthrates. A woman there will give birth to an average of 1.14 children, well below the rate of 2.1 needed to maintain the population. In a government survey of 4,100 people who are married or in serious relationships, three out of 10 said they would delay marriage or having a child because of the pandemic.
“Some couples have indicated that they will postpone their life plans to focus on their financial stability and employment prospects,” said the office of Singapore’s prime minister. Some also spoke of anxiety about the safety of hospitals and clinics. In response, the government will offer a baby support grant of $US3,000 for each child delivered from this month up to September 2022.
The Times
READ MORE: Xi blows horn at Uncle Sam
Emily Ritchie 12.30pm: Queensland records zero new cases
Queensland has reported zero new COVID-19 cases overnight, keeping the state’s active case tally at six.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said it was good to see figures remaining low, which would allow Queenslanders to continue their usual sport and activity.
More than 3,600 coronavirus tests were done in the past 24 hours.
The state has now recorded 1167 confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic.
READ MORE: Greg Sheridan — Trump is closing the gap but is it too late?
Emily Ritchie 12.15pm: Growing clusters put reopening in doubt
Daniel Andrews has tempered the expectations of Victorians — namely hospitality and retail businesses — about the extent to which he will ease coronavirus restrictions this weekend, saying his highly-anticipated Sunday announcement would hinge on the management of new outbreaks.
The Premier said the state government was closely monitoring a northern suburbs cluster, which grew by four cases on Saturday.
“I just want to caution people from, if you like, banking that tomorrow I’m making a whole series of detailed announcements about opening up,” Mr Andrews said.
“We do hope to get to that point, but with so many thousands of tests that are still being processed, we need to see the results of those tests.”
He said a localised lockdown of hotspot suburbs, an approach adopted by his government in the past, would “not be the appropriate response”.
“Ultimately, unless you have no movement out of a dedicated or specified geographic area, then that does not work,” Mr Andrews said.
More than 17,000 people were tested on Friday, and thousands more will be tested on Saturday.
“Almost certainly we will get more cases out of these separate outbreaks,” Mr Andrews said. “The key point will be tomorrow and Monday and throughout the week, are they linked? Are they cases that can be, if you like, linked? If they’re not, if there are no linkages, if they’re not linked in any way, that speaks to the fact that there may be more virus in that northern part of the city than we would be comfortable with. It also speaks directly to the fact that if that is the case, then opening up can see case numbers explode.”
He said the state was in a “very good position” and if he could proceed with announcements for the easing of restrictions tomorrow then he would.
“We have been in some respects in this position before and we have to do everything we can to avoid that,” Mr Andrews said.
“I’ll make announcements tomorrow. I’ll fully explain where it is we land but, with so many test results in the labs and others that will be done today, it’s really important that we be guided by the data and the evidence and the science.”
Of the 17,219 coronavirus tests carried out on Friday across the state, 2802 were undertaken in the northern suburbs of Melbourne.
Victoria’s testing commander Jeroen Weimar said this was a 35 per cent increase from last Friday.
Emily Ritchie 12pm: Andrews defends response to new Melbourne cluster
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has defended his government’s response to a new coronavirus outbreak in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, confirming he has met with community leaders and deployed hundreds of health workers to the area to doorknock and provide information and testing.
Mr Andrews said six of the state’s seven new cases on Saturday were connected to known cases or clusters, including the East Preston Islamic College outbreak, Croxton Special School, the Hoppers Crossing community outbreak and Estia aged care in Keilor.
The Premier said he held a virtual meeting with community and faith leaders in Melbourne’s northern suburbs on Saturday morning to discuss the public health response.
“I want to thank them for the very proactive and cooperative way — the partnership that we have with them,” Mr Andrews said during his daily coronavirus briefing.
“They’re reaching out to literally hundreds and thousands of people in their own networks, whether they be faith-based or community-based networks, setting up telephone trees, calling upon people to come forward and get tested, making sure that they’re reminding people that, if you’ve been asked to stay in your home — either pending a test result or because you’re a positive or a close contact — that that’s critically important to do.”
He said there was an adequate number of translators in the health response team and that everybody, regardless of their background, was “in this together”.
“This virus does not, in any way, discriminate between different members of the Victorian community and neither does the government and its agencies when it comes to providing the most appropriate public health response,” Mr Andrews said.
The seventh case reported on Saturday is under investigation, but is a person who has previously tested positive for the virus and may be shedding the virus rather than becoming newly infected, Mr Andrews said.
“We believe it’s likely to be persistent shedding of the virus rather than a new infection but, as we’ve seen all week, from an abundance of caution, those cases are treated as if they were a positive and they’ll be reviewed by the relevant expert panel at the appropriate time,” Mr Andrews said.
The case related to the Croxton special school is a student whose entire family of four has now tested positive for the virus.
Victoria now has 98 active cases, just two of which are in regional Victoria and connected to the greater Shepparton cluster.
“The last time we had less than 100 active cases was June 19,” Mr Andrews said.
Eight Victorians are being treated in hospital but none of those patients are in intensive care.
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Emily Ritchie 11.30am: SA-Victorian border restrictions eased
South Australia’s border restrictions with Victoria have been eased on Saturday, with a travel bubble being extended to 70km on either side of the border.
The easing of border restrictions will enable people to travel without having to provide a reason, as long as they are from within that 70km radius area.
People in Victoria are also now allowed to enter South Australia if they wish to permanently relocate, either for work or to come home.
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Emily Ritchie 11.20am: NSW records second day with no new cases
NSW has recorded its second consecutive day with no local transmission of COVID-19, with five new cases diagnosed in hotel quarantine in the 24-hours to Friday night.
NSW Health said it was treating 74 COVID-19 cases, with no patients in intensive care. “Ninety-two per cent of cases being treated by NSW Health are in non-acute, out-of-hospital care,” a statement on Saturday read.
There have now been 4186 confirmed cases reported across the state since the beginning of the pandemic.
There were 12,890 coronavirus tests conducted in NSW on Friday, compared with 13,686 in the previous 24 hours.
For the second consecutive day, NSW has reported no new cases of locally transmitted COVID-19 in the 24 hours to 8pm last night.
— NSW Health (@NSWHealth) October 24, 2020
Five cases in overseas travellers in hotel quarantine were reported, bringing the total number of cases in NSW to 4,186. pic.twitter.com/onYNi4hJGD
NSW Health is appealing to the community to come forward for testing as soon as “even mildest of symptoms” – like a runny nose or scratchy throat, cough, fever – appear and to immediately self-isolate until a negative result is returned.
“This is particularly important in south western Sydney, western Sydney and south eastern Sydney, where there have been locally transmitted cases recently,” NSW Health said.
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Emily Ritchie 11am: World now at ‘critical point’ in pandemic
As of Friday afternoon there had been 41,570,883 confirmed COVID cases globally and 1,134,940 deaths reported to the World Health Organisation.
The WHO said the world is now at a critical point in the coronavirus pandemic, with some countries struggling to contain outbreaks and stem the spread.
“The next few months are going to be very tough, and some countries are on a dangerous track,” WHO’s director general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
“Too many countries are seeing an exponential increase in cases and that’s now leading to hospitals and ICUs running close, or above, capacity and we’re still only in October.”
The United States recorded its highest ever daily increase of COVID-19 cases on Friday, with over 77,000 new cases diagnosed across the country. This was the highest daily total since July, prompting public health authorities to warn of a bleak upcoming winter unless basic precautions are adopted.
There were 850 deaths recorded in the 24-hour reporting period, edging the country’s fatalities from the virus to almost 225,000.
The US remains the country to have recorded the highest number of confirmed cases in the world, with 8.5 million Americans becoming infected since the pandemic began.
The UK recorded another 189 deaths and 21,242 new confirmed cases on Thursday. It came as more regions were ordered to go into the UK’s highest tier of restrictions, including Wales and greater Manchester.
READ MORE: Katrina Grace Kelly — Melburnians ‘frightened’ by constant push to reopen
John Ferguson 10.30am: Victorian Premier eyes path to reopening
The dumping of restrictions on city and country travel and the staged reopening of hospitality and retail are being debated by Victorian public health officials after further evidence Australia’s second coronavirus wave has all but been defeated.
The government will outline on Sunday an accelerated timetable for reopening, with plans to detail when the 25km city travel limit will end and the removal of the so-called ring of steel preventing metropolitan drivers travelling to country areas.
Public health officials and cabinet ministers will debate the reopening over the weekend, with sources indicating the outcome was “entirely fluid” but that some changes may still be delayed to guarantee an orderly transition to so-called COVID normal.
However, a timetable would be released to enable businesses to plan for the future.
Officials will examine traffic patterns amid evidence on Friday that people were gathering in their hundreds in key city destinations after being starved of freedom during the winter lockdown caused by the hotel quarantine debacle.
Hundreds of anti-lockdown protesters also caused difficulties for police, one assaulting a police horse, as they gathered near Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance.
“Everything is on the table,” Premier Daniel Andrews said on Friday, adding that he was hopeful that interstate borders would be open by the end of the year.
Read the full story here.
Lisa Allen 10am: Clear of the big cities, property is on fire
Celebrity agent John McGrath is banking on a spate of real estate price rises in rural areas as city dwellers flee the big smoke for cleaner spaces, while luxury house vendors, particularly in leafy garden suburbs, will also benefit.
The shift is highlighted in the annual McGrath Report, a snapshot of the property market in the eastern states.
Mr McGrath said the vendors of Sydney houses with price tags of more than $3m (or $2m in Melbourne and more than $1.5m in Brisbane) stood to benefit as the COVID-19 crisis had inner-city residents reassessing their lifestyles, sending apartment dwellers to garden suburbs and rural areas in a bid to escape the pandemic. There is a caveat, however.Mr McGrath said the outcome of the US election and how it was received by Wall Street would have a bearing on Australia’s stockmarket and thus the local real estate sector next year.
Read the full story here.
Sarah Elks 9.30am: Rescue flights cleared to land
The Queensland Labor government has given the green light for the arrival of a charter flight of Australians from Laos as Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the border with NSW could still open on November 1 despite recent cases of community transmission.
A government spokesman on Friday night disputed Scott Morrison’s comments earlier in the day that Queensland had refused to allow the flight — believed to be carrying 40 vulnerable Australians — to land in Cairns.
The spokesman said the Palaszczuk government had not refused entry and that it would be allowed to arrive on October 28. “The Queensland government has agreed to take this flight into Queensland and is working with federal counterparts to finalise arrangements,’’ the spokesman said. “The flight will be accepted within existing quarantine arrangements in southeast Queensland where those returning Australians deemed vulnerable can be best accommodated.”
Read the full story here.
Emily Ritchie 9am: Victoria on alert as school cluster grows
Victoria has reported seven new COVID-19 cases in the 24-hours to Friday evening ahead of a “significant” announcement of easing restrictions.
The state’s death toll remained unchanged on Saturday at 817.
Metropolitan Melbourne’s rolling 14-day average has finally reached the all-important 5 while regional Victoria’s is 0.2.
There are 10 mystery cases active in metro Melbourne and none in regional Victoria.
The Department of Health and Human Services earlier said one new case had been associated with East Preston Islamic College in Melbourne’s north.
A further three cases were also linked to the Preston area.
News of the growing cluster has prompted an asymptomatic testing blitz and resulted in the self-isolation of hundreds of people to prevent a wider outbreak.
Health teams have been door knocking homes in the area to offer testing.
Almost 90 homes were doorknocked by authorities on Friday, with more than one-third accepting a coronavirus test.
Yesterday there were 7 new cases & no loss of life reported. The 14 day rolling average is down in Melb & regional Vic, and cases with unknown source stable. There is more info here and also later today https://t.co/pcll7ySEgz #COVID19VicData pic.twitter.com/DlWYER6e9K
— VicGovDHHS (@VicGovDHHS) October 23, 2020
Victoria’s Commander of Testing and Community Engagement Jeroen Weimar said DHHS was working closely with community and faith leaders to ensure the message of “get tested” was getting across.
“I am so grateful to our community leaders for working with us to keep people safe,” he said.
“I have held several sessions over the last two days to listen and act on the advice from leading community members.
“We are all Victorians working together to keep this virus away from our families.”
READ MORE: Peter van Onselen — Virus a poor excuse for delaying this
Natasha Robinson 8.45am: How to do away with lockdowns
It’s a study in contrasts. Europe is grappling with a second wave of COVID-19, with case numbers already triple those recorded at the peak of the first wave. But in Asian countries including Singapore, Japan and South Korea, the disease is largely contained and governments are preparing to ease restrictions and reopen borders.
The seeds of the disaster in Europe versus the success in Asia were sown early. In countries including Italy, France and Britain, governments locked down hard, brought cases down and then largely eased restrictions throughout their summer. But community transmission was never brought fully under control and, as lockdowns ended, cases rose.
In Asia, rigorous contact tracing, strict quarantine measures and widespread testing stamped out outbreaks when they arose, the groundwork carefully laid for a long-term strategy of containment.
Read the full story here
Geoff Chambers 8.30am: A very merry Christmas as opening agreed
All states and territories except for Western Australia have endorsed a COVID-19 national reopening plan, removing all border closures and social restrictions by Christmas, and resuming international travel with low-risk countries.
The new economic framework, updating the national cabinet’s COVID Safe Australia road map from May, would see no restrictions on gatherings and all schools, shopping centres and pubs opened by December 25.
Under stage three of the strategy — dubbed COVID Normal — tourists, students and businesspeople from COVID-safe destinations across the Asia-Pacific could be travelling to Australia within two months.
Read the full story here.
Agencies 8am: Europe in grip of new lockdowns
France extended its anti-COVID curfew to cover two-thirds of the population and Ireland locked down again on Thursday as governments warned of a dire situation in Europe where countries are registering record cases.
Most European governments have been reluctant to reimpose national stay-at-home orders after previous restrictions led to deep recessions and widespread bitterness. But Ireland became the first country on the continent to reimpose a full-on lockdown on Thursday, with its five million-strong population ordered to stay home for six weeks, and non-essential businesses told to shut.
“The infection rates, hospital occupancy rates but also death rates are rising all over Europe,” warned Andrea Ammon, head of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, in an interview with the BBC.
Read the full story here.
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