Coronavirus Australia live news: PM ‘deeply sorry’ over aged care failure; man in his 20s Australia’s youngest virus fatality
Britain buys up 90 million doses of two new vaccines which could be delivered in mid-2021, as doubts cloud hotel’s ‘patient zero’.
- Doubt cast on quarantine hotel’s ‘patient zero’
- PM ‘deeply sorry’ over aged care failures
- Man in his 20s youngest fatality
- Victoria cases rise again to 372
- Auckland extends lockdown as NZ cases balloon to 30
- Third case at Liverpool Hospital
Welcome to The Australian’s rolling coverage of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
The hotel at centre of the first of Victoria’s two key quarantine virus outbreaks has cast doubt on claims its night duty manager is cluster’s ‘patient zero’. Scott Morrison is ‘deeply sorry’ over aged care failures, but says they are not the result of complacency. A man in his 20s has become Australia’s youngest Covid fatality. Victoria’s cases have risen again to 372, with 14 deaths. In NZ, Auckland has extended its lockdown as cases balloon. In NSW, a third employee has tested positive at Sydney’s Liverpool Hospital.
Stephen Lunn, Olivia Caisley 11pm: Supercharged teams for aged-care response
National cabinet will agree to the urgent creation of aged-care rapid response centres in all states and territories in a bid to get ahead of potential COVID-19 outbreaks in nursing homes around the nation.
The new co-ordination bodies will be similar to the Victorian Aged Care Response Centre, which brings together federal and state emergency management, the Australian Defence Force, clinical support, infection control specialists and medical experts, including geriatricians and specialist aged-care nurses.
They hope to ensure nursing homes are adequately resourced to prevent outbreaks and, if a positive case is found, to quickly co-ordinate the deployment of resources to stop further infection, including a surge workforce to cover staff required to isolate.
Scott Morrison and state and territory leaders had extensive discussions at last week’s national cabinet meeting about how lessons from the Victorian coronavirus outbreak in nursing homes could be used to protect vulnerable residents in all states.
Read the full story here.
Rachel Baxendale 6.34pm: 26 people on ventilators with virus in Victoria
Victoria’s 372 new coronavirus cases on Friday brought the state’s total since the pandemic began to 16,234.
There were 659 people in Victorian hospitals with the virus on Friday, down from 664 on Thursday, of whom 41 were in intensive care - an increase of four since Thursday.
Of the 41 in ICU, 26 were on ventilators - an increase of one since Thursday.
There were 18,909 COVID-19 tests processed in Victoria in the 24 hours to Friday, bringing the total since the pandemic began to 1,914,474.
The positive test rate was 1.97 per cent.
The highest positive test rate this month was 3.02 per cent from a record 725 new cases and 24,000 tests processed on August 5, while the lowest rate was 0.95 per cent from 394 new cases and 41,416 tests processed on Sunday.
The number of active cases in healthcare workers increased by 48 to 1188, while the number of active cases linked to aged care increased by 16 to 2034.
READ MORE: Quarantine decision made before meeting: Andrews
Jacquelin Magnay 6.25pm: Britain snaps up coronavirus vaccines
Britain has snapped up 90 million doses of two new coronavirus vaccines in development which if proven safe, could be delivered in mid-2021.
The British government has now bought up hundreds of millions of vaccine doses from six different companies currently testing their vaccines in clinical trials to ensure the country will receive early access to any that prove effective.
The latest additions were 60m doses of the Novavax vaccine, which will manufacture in the UK with FujiFilm Diosynth Biotechnologies and 30m doses of Janssen vaccine being made by Johnson and Johnson. The British government is also co-funding the global clinical trial of the Janssen vaccine.
Britons to be given priority in a coronavirus vaccination program would be frontline health and social care workers, ethnic minorities, adults with serious diseases, and the elderly, the government said.
The British government has secured early access to other vaccines in development — effectively hedging bets to be able to provide an early widespread vaccination program as soon as one proves effective.
They have invested in four different types of vaccines: adenoviral vaccines (Oxford/AstraZeneca, Janssen), mRNA vaccines (BioNTech/Pfizer, Imperial) inactivated whole virus vaccines (Valneva) and protein adjuvant vaccines (GSK/Sanofi, Novavax).
As well Britain has obtained access to AstraZeneca’s antibody treatment which works to neutralise the virus. This treatment, if successful, will be provided for people who suppressed immune systems and front line workers as well as infected patients.
Business Secretary Alok Sharma said: “The Government’s strategy to build a portfolio of promising vaccine candidates will ensure we have the best chance possible of finding one that works.
“Today’s agreements will not only benefit people in the UK but will ensure fair and equitable access of a vaccine around the world, potentially protecting hundreds of millions of lives.
“While we are doing everything we can to ensure the British people get access to a successful vaccine as soon as possible, nobody is safe until we are all safe so global cooperation is absolutely critical if we are to defeat this virus once and for all.”
READ MORE: Russia announces first coronavirus vaccine
Rachel Baxendale 5.39pm: Victoria’s virus total passes 16,000
Victoria’s 372 new coronavirus cases on Friday brought the state’s total since the pandemic began to 16,234.
There were 659 people in Victorian hospitals with the virus on Friday, down from 664 on Thursday, of whom 41 were in intensive care - an increase of four since Thursday.
Of the 41 in ICU, 26 were on ventilators - an increase of one since Thursday.
There were 18,909 COVID-19 tests processed in Victoria in the 24 hours to Friday, bringing the total since the pandemic began to 1,914,474.
The positive test rate was 1.97 per cent.
The highest positive test rate this month was 3.02 per cent from a record 725 new cases and 24,000 tests processed on August 5, while the lowest rate was 0.95 per cent from 394 new cases and 41,416 tests processed on Sunday.
The number of active cases in healthcare workers increased by 48 to 1188, while the number of active cases linked to aged care increased by 16 to 2034.
READ MORE: Why no one was ready for COVID-19
Steve Jackson 4.55pm: Inexplicable, unjustifiable: Ruby Princess fiasco
The special commission of inquiry into the Ruby Princess cruise fiasco has found a series of “serious errors” by NSW Health that led to it classifying the ship a low biosecurity risk when it docked in Sydney Harbour with sick passengers aboard was as “inexplicable as it is unjustifiable”, and led to the nation’s first major coronavirus outbreak.
The report, overseen by Commissioner Bret Walker SC, was handed to NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Friday afternoon before then being made public at about 4pm.
The scandal, which has been linked to more than 20 deaths across Australian, unfolded after the Ruby Princess docked in Sydney on March 19.
READ the full story here.
Max Maddison 4.15pm: Albanese slams PM on aged care response
Anthony Albanese has called on the federal government “to do much better” in protecting aged care residents, as he says Scott Morrison is unequivocally responsible for residential aged care facilities.
With the ongoing royal commission into the aged care sector illuminating widespread issues confronting facilities, the Opposition Leader, said too many sons and daughters have said their “final goodbyes to their parents over Facetime”.
“Our incredible aged care workers are holding the hands of our precious elderly as they pass. The fact is, we as a country need to do much better,” Mr Albanese said.
“When the prime minister stood in the courtyard on the Thursday of a sitting week, after question time, and waved around the document saying that it was the plan to deal with [coronavirus] and its impact on Australians, that document said very clearly and I quote section 4.1.4: ‘The Australian government will also be responsible for residential aged care facilities.’
“Nothing equivocal, about it: very clearly from the prime minister saying that the Australian government was responsible.”
Calling for a national cabinet discussion, Mr Albanese said there needed to be clear demarcation between things that are, or should be, federal responsibilities.
Max Maddison 3.55pm: Auckland extends lockdown as NZ cases spiral to 30
Auckland’s stage three lockdown will be extended for 12 days, after New Zealand’s fresh coronavirus outbreak ballooned to 30 cases.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said 53 hours after revealing the initial four cases, another 29 infections had already been linked to the Auckland family, with another case suspected.
However, Ms Ardern said the original source of the virus continued to remain a mystery, after genomic testing failed to link the outbreak to either border control or controlled quarantine. She said the earliest case could be linked back to a worker in the Americold factory, whose symptoms began on July 31.
“The sequence of the virus from the current outbreak is not the same as the sequences from community cases in our first original outbreak in New Zealand. This suggests this is not a case of the virus being dormant or of a burning ember in our community,” Ms Ardern told a press conference this afternoon
“It appears to be new to New Zealand. In terms of wider surveillance, since I made the announcement to move alert levels on Tuesday, we have tested more people than in any other time we have had COVID in New Zealand.”
Ms Ardern said stage three restrictions in Auckland, and stage two restrictions across the rest of the country, would remain in place for 12 days until 11:59pm on Wednesday 26 August – fourteen days after the initial case was discovered.
READ MORE: Why was no one ready for COVID-19
Rachel Baxendale 3.35pm: Quarantine hotel casts doubt on cluster’s ‘patient zero’
The hotel at the centre of the first of Victoria’s two key hotel quarantine coronavirus outbreaks has issued a statement casting doubt over claims its night duty manager, who was the first person linked to the facility to test positive for the virus, was the cluster’s “patient zero”.
Nine Newspapers on Friday reported that “patient zero” was “not a badly behaved security guard but a night duty manager” at the Rydges on Swanston quarantine hotel, citing leaked emails showing the managed reported on Monday, May 25 that he had come down with a fever, with the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions told the following afternoon that he had tested positive.
The case was made public by Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton, who described the man as a “Rydges staff member” on May 27.
The Rydges cluster went on to infect 17 staff members and close contacts, the vast majority of whom were security guards, while a later outbreak at the Stamford Plaza quarantine hotel infected 43 security guards and their close contacts.
At least one of these clusters has been genomically linked to what Premier Daniel Andrews has described as “at least a significant proportion” of Victoria’s deadly second wave of coronavirus cases, with Professor Sutton saying a link to all of the second wave was possible.
Professor Sutton said on Friday that it was not clear which staff member was “patient zero” or who caught the virus from whom.
In a statement released on Friday afternoon, a spokesperson for Rydges said the hotel had been closed to guests since March 27, the day before Victoria’s hotel quarantine program began, and had been “operating under the direction of the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions (DJPR) and the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) as a Quarantine Hotel, at the request of the Victorian government.”
“While it has been widely reported in the media today that a staff member tested positive on 25 May 2020, we wish to clarify that colleagues and family contacts of the staff member all tested negative, with the staff member isolating immediately upon getting tested,” the hotel said.
“Rydges on Swanston is fully supportive of the Judicial Inquiry into the Hotel Quarantine Program and is currently assisting the Inquiry with its investigations.
“We look forward to clarification around the source of infection as the inquiry findings are presented.”
READ MORE: Security guards call made before ‘pivotal meeting’
Olivia Caisley 3.15pm: Aged care commission claims ‘ludicrous’: Murphy
Department of Health Secretary Brendan Murphy has rejected claims the government wasn’t prepared for coronavirus outbreaks in nursing homes, accusing evidence given at the aged care royal commission of being “very misleading”.
In a fiery exchange at a Senate inquiry scrutinising the government’s response to COVID-19 on Friday, Professor Murphy hit back at statistics used to criticise Australia’s preparedness for aged care outbreaks.
It comes after counsel assisting the aged care royal commission Peter Rozen QC launched a scathing attack on aged care preparedness earlier this week, telling the inquiry that Australia had one of the highest global rates of deaths among nursing home residents.
But Professor Murphy, who served as Chief Medical Officer until June, lashed the accusations as an extraordinary interpretation of statistics and labelled the conclusion “ludicrous”.
“It’s been an awful situation, but to interpret a percentage of an extremely low death rate as an example of poor aged care management is simply not defensible,” he said. “We find that a very misleading conclusion and we reject that it represents a pejorative assessment of our aged care.
READ the full story here.
Imogen Reid 2.30pm: Tangara school did not breach health orders: police
NSW Police have completed their investigation into the Tangara School for Girls in the north western suburb of Cherrybrook, finding no breaches of public health orders.
“The NSW police force has finalised its investigation and determined no breaches of public health orders were taken,” a NSW police spokeswoman said.
It comes after parents said the school had been flouting COVID-19 restrictions by continuing to hold choir practices, mass and communion, and food stalls before the coronavirus outbreak began.
The cluster is now linked to 21 cases.
READ MORE: Students ‘saw the outbreak coming’
Imogen Reid 2.15pm: NSW, Vic best models for border closures: Morrison
Addressing the issue of border closures, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the path New South Wales and Victoria has taken has provided the best model for the other States and Territories to follow.
“Personally, the way that New South Wales and Victoria went about that process provided the best model,” Mr Morrison said.
“I made it very clear to chief ministers and premiers that what we should be focusing on is the containment of the virus and where there are hot spots – and I have been saying this since early March – the three areas you had to focus on: testing, tracing, containment of outbreaks, defining those outbreaks, where they are and ringing them off and it is just as important to stop someone from moving out of the an outbreak area within a state to go to another state as it is for them to go to any other state.”
Mr Morrison said the States and Territories have been adamant about their sovereignty when it comes to enforcing border restrictions and said Australians can be assured there is a process Premiers are following when making decisions about when they close and open borders.
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Imogen Reid 1.55pm: Pandemic exposed aged care weaknesses: PM
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has conceded the pandemic has exposed unforeseen weaknesses in the country’s aged-care system, but says they are not the result of complacency.
“I want to see the royal commission do its job. I’m looking forward to receiving their recommendations,” Mr Morrison said.
“That doesn’t mean we will be standing still in the meantime. We continue to deliver an extra billion dollars every year into aged care. We will continue to increase the number of aged care in home places.
“We will continue to look at the work that needs to be done. The pandemic exposes weaknesses and that in some ways is in many ways unforeseen, and in other ways is very disappointed, but we are dealing with a system that is now dealing with a very different demand than it had even in the times you are talking about.”
Mr Morrison said he did not accept the assertion that failings in the system came down to a lack of preparedness.
“Where there have been failings, where things have fallen short, I can assure you it wasn’t as a result of complacency,” he said.
“That has not been the attitude of our government and will not be when it comes to the very serious issue of protecting the life of older Australians in the places whether they receive care. That is someone else’s opinion. It is not a finding, and it is not an opinion that I share. Quite the contrary.”
READ MORE: NZ records 12 new cases
Imogen Reid 1.45pm: Apology offered as ‘system falls short’
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has apologised for the days the “system falls short”, after acknowledging the pandemic has got the better of the Commonwealth’s response in aged care facilities.
“On the days that the system falls short, on the days that expectations are not met, I’m deeply sorry about that, of course I am, and I know that everyone who is involved in the process who is trying to meet those expectations is equally sorry,” Mr Morrison said.
“On the days where workforces are completely stripped from facilities and there is nobody there and you scramble for a workforce to try and put them in place and you have ADF officers who go there at 11.00 at night to try to clean up the mess that’s not good enough, but they are the actions we had to take to stabilise those facilities in those situations.
“And so they are the good days, but other days are not as good, and that’s the simple honesty that I’m offering to the Australian people on that. Of course we’re sorry about that, of course we’re devastated by it.”
READ MORE: New Zealand records new cases
Imogen Reid 1.30pm: Morrison says ‘we had a plan’ for aged care
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has rejected the assertion there was not a plan for aged care, saying the government has endeavoured to put that plan into action every day.
“We have addressed that issue. There was a plan. That has been given in evidence to the royal commission and we will continue to provide the facts to the royal commission,” he said.
“What we need to do every day is to ensure that we put that plan into action. I will tell you one of the things we have learnt during this pandemic: You can have a plan, you can do the training, you can provide the funding – all of this has been done. Then you’ve got to go back and reinforce the plan and you’ve got to reinforce the leanings, and you’ve got to reinforce the training, and that’s what is happening, and that has been our process the entire time.”
Similarly, Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly says the government has had “very detailed plans for aged care” since the beginning of the pandemic.
“Since the very beginning of this issue — even before it started in Australia, we’ve been meeting virtually daily and we’ve had over 170 meets now of the AHPPC on almost every occasion, we’ve talked about aged care and the particular issues of vulnerable people, and particularly in the case of our aged members of our community,” Professor Kelly said.
“There have been very detailed, specific operational plans for dealing with aged-care outbreaks and for preparing those ways to prevent them since the middle of March and those plans are working in many ways.”
Professor Kelly said health officials are still “learning to work through” the large community outbreaks occurring in Melbourne, including setting up the Victorian Aged Care Response Centre.
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Remy Varga 1.30pm: Security guards call made before ‘pivotal meeting’
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has conceded the decision to use private security guards was made prior to a “very pivotal meeting” that decided on the hotel quarantine plan.
“I certainly wouldn’t have talked about something that hadn’t happened or at least being talked about,” he said. “We can agree about that.”
Mr Andrews said he would check as he didn’t “want to make up a date”.
In a press conference at 3pm on March 27, an hour and a half before the operational meeting, Mr Andrews said: “Police, private security, all of our health team, will be able to monitor compliance” at the hotel quarantine program.
Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions Secretary Simon Phemister told a parliamentary committee hearing on Wednesday that the decision to use security guards in hotel quarantine was made at that “very pivotal meeting”, which began at 4:30pm on March 27.
The meeting was attended by multiple agencies, but The Australian understands no Andrews government minister nor their staff were present.
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Imogen Reid 1.10pm: PM concedes: Some days we fall short
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has assured Australian’s the Victorian Aged Care Response Centre are doing their best to ensure aged care residents are supported during the pandemic, but admits there have been previous shortcomings.
“The sad truth is, some days, we fall short. And other days, we don’t,” Mr Morrison said.
“On some days, the pandemic gets the better of us, and on other days it doesn’t. And I think we’ve got to have a reality check about this. There are no absolute guarantees in a global pandemic. There are no absolute assurances that can be provided.”
Mr Morrison said over the course of week 188 aged care recipients have passed away, with a further 12 reported today.
“There’s been active cases of over 1,000 residents and over 1,000 staff,” Mr Morrison said. “But in response, the work that is being done in Victoria – over 400 residents in aged care facilities have been transferred to hospitals now, with the Aged Care Response Centre playing an active role in more than 300 of those cases and this included the transfer of a further 14 residents this week.”
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Remy Varga 12.57pm: Andrews ‘doesn’t dispute’ Defence offer was made
Mr Andrews said he couldn’t add to a statement made by Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp, who has ignored The Australian’s request for clarification.
Mr Andrews said he wasn’t disputing reports 100 ADF troops were put aside for Victoria, just he wasn’t sure what program they were made available for.
“I’m not disputing it, the point I’m trying to make is … troops or ADF personnel put aside, what needs to be borne out here … for what purpose? For Operational Sentinel and Operation Soteria?”
Mr Crisp has issued a statement saying he did not seek ADF assistance as part of the state’s bungled hotel quarantine scheme, but failing to address the fact that he signed off on a request to the federal government for ADF personnel on June 24.
Remy Varga 12.52pm: Premier seeks to clarify Defence operations
On the ADF statement issued Friday morning, Mr Andrews said it referred to Operation Sentinel, which enforced home quarantine, but not Operation Soteria, which was the hotel quarantine program.
“That program is entirely different to ADF support to checking whether people are not returned challenges but isolating at home, that’s a very different program,” he said.
Remy Varga 12.47pm: Andrews answers questions over ADF help offer
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said he would have no problem if ADF officials were called to give evidence at the board of inquiry into the bungled hotel quarantine program.
“Whatever Judge Coate needs, she should get,” he said.
Mr Andrews said he didn’t want to run commentary on an independent process, which is being overseen by former judge Jennifer Coate.
Remy Varga 12.42pm: Professor Sutton: We’re doing better than many
Professor Sutton conceded Victoria’s contract tracing system was under pressure with the state recording hundreds of cases a day.
But he said many countries in Victoria’s position had simply given up when faced with similar numbers of COVID-19.
“We’re doing much better than a lot of countries that simply gave up on contact tracing,” he said.
Professor Sutton said the average wait time for a coronavirus test was between 1.6 to 1.7 days.
“There will be some people who will wait 4-5 days for a result, I’d ask them to be patient,” he said.
Rachel Baxendale 12.40pm: Stricken state’s cases continue to fall
Victoria’s number of active coronavirus cases has fallen for the third day straight, dipping by 24 cases to 7842.
The number peaked on Tuesday at 7880, after rising every day for more than two months.
It dipped by three on Wednesday – although this was partly due to a record 21 deaths that day, and fell by 11 on Thursday – the first time the number of recoveries had exceeded the number of new cases in more than two months.
There were 14 deaths in the 24 hours to Friday, meaning the number of recoveries exceeded the number of new cases by 10.
Remy Varga 12.38pm: Victoria ‘confident’ that peak has passed
Professor Sutton said he’s “very confident” Victoria has seen the coronavirus peak but said it was still too early to see the impact of stage-four restrictions.
“I think because we’ve seen a stabilisation of the number of active cases now, you know it’s essentially levelled off,” he said.
Remy Varga 12.33pm: Health staff showing up to work with symptoms
Professor Sutton said healthcare workers, along with other casual workers, were still presenting to work with mild symptoms of the coronavirus.
“It is still happening, it’s happening across workplaces, the challenge is … you have to isolate with the first symptoms,” he said.
Professor Sutton the issue was workers are dismissing mild symptoms such as a runny nose as well as facing pressure from their bosses.
Remy Varga 12.28pm: ‘Mystery cases’ still concerning state authorities
Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said the state’s mystery cases are beginning to “plateau” but are still concerning health authorities.
He said around one-in-five cases in metropolitan Melbourne and 13 per cent of regional cases were of unknown transmission.
“It’s still a concern because it does represent those mystery cases that might have been picked up locally,” he said of the regional mystery cases.
The Victorian government launched a testing push in Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo.
Professor Sutton said mystery cases could be exposed to people with pre-symptomatic conditions of the coronavirus, which meant they couldn’t identify where they had picked up the coronavirus.
“What we’re concerned about is people who have pre-symptomatic illness,” he said.
Remy Varga 12.25pm: Premier announces details of Victoria’s deaths
Friday’s victims from the coronavirus are a man in his 20s, three woman and two men in their 80s, four men and four women in their 90s. Of the 14 deaths, 12 are linked to aged care.
Remy Varga 12.20pm: Australia’s youngest Covid fatality revealed
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews says a man in their 20s is among the latest 14 to die from the coronavirus. He’s the youngest person in Australia to die from the coronavirus. Two men in their 30s were previously the youngest victims.
Adeshola Ore 12.05pm: Next year’s Port Fairy Folk Festival canned
Victoria’s Port Fairy Folk Festival 2021 event, scheduled for March, has been cancelled due to coronavirus concerns. It is the first time in the festival’s 44 year history that it has been called off.
Festival committee president John Young said the health of the Port Fairy community was at the “forefront” of the decision.
“With restrictions on gatherings and too many uncertainties attached to the current global pandemic, we had to make this choice,” he said in a statement.
“Rather than invest into a risky and unsafe time for live music and large gatherings, we will focus our energies on producing a truly wonderful Port Fairy Folk Festival experience in 2022.”
The event held annually in March in southwestern Victorian normally attracts 12,000 people.
Earlier this week, Acting Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly said music festivals were “relatively high risk” for COVID-19, but “not front of mind” for medical experts.
“Large numbers of people, often multi-day events, lots of close contact, dancing and singing and so forth, all of these things are higher risk than some other mass gatherings,” he said.
Last month, the organisers of Falls Festival cancelled their New Year’s Eve event in Tasmania. The festival’s events in Victoria, NSW and Western Australia are still scheduled to go ahead in December.
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Staff Reporters 11.45am: Qld records just two new Covid cases
Queensland has recorded two new cases of COVID-19 in the 24 hours to Friday morning.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said one of the people was a returned traveller from Sydney staying in hotel quarantine, while the other was based on a cargo ship off the coast.
Friday, 14 August – coronavirus cases in Queensland:
— Annastacia Palaszczuk (@AnnastaciaMP) August 13, 2020
• 2 new confirmed cases (1 returned traveller from Sydney in hotel quarantine and 1 person on a cargo ship off the coast)
• 8 active cases
• 1,091 total confirmed cases
• 716,420 tests conducted#covid19au pic.twitter.com/B0o7KrXYsM
Remy Varga 11.30am: Melbourne man had ‘virus-resistant condition’
A Melbourne man not wearing a mask who claimed to have a birth condition that made him resistant to the coronavirus is among the latest to be fined for public health breaches.
As well, Victoria Police busted eight people who did not live together in a one-bedroom apartment on Flinders Street.
Of the 253 fines issued for public health breaches in the last 24-hours, 41 are for failures to wear a face covering and 75 are for curfew breaches.
A Victoria Police spokesman said these included two men not wearing face masks who were buying cigarettes in South Melbourne after curfew.
“Both men were also not wearing face coverings, with one claiming he did not need to as he has a birth condition that makes him resistant to coronavirus,” he said.
Another man from the Whittlesea region in Melbourne’s far north who’d already been fined nine times for public health breaches was again fined in the inner city suburb of Richmond.
He said he was visiting colleagues but could not produce documentation.
READ MORE: NSW a test case for the nation
Agencies 11.20am: New Zealand records 13 new virus cases
New Zealand’s director general of health, Dr Ashley Bloomfield, has revealed the country has 13 new Covid cases, bringing the active total to 48.
Of those, 30 are linked to the most recent community outbreak. Before this week, New Zealand had gone more than 100 days without a coronavirus case.
Imogen Reid 11.15am: New NSW cases drop to single figures
Nine new cases of coronavirus have been reported in NSW overnight, taking the total number of infections to 3747.
Of the new cases, five were locally acquired and linked to known cases, including one who worked at Dooleys Lidcombe Catholic Club, a student at Tangara School for Girls in Cherrybrook, one staff member at Liverpool Hospital and two household contacts of known cases.
A further three cases are returned travellers, while one case was locally acquired with no known source.
READ MORE: Why weren’t we ready for the coronavirus?
Rachel Baxendale 11am: Defence confirms offer to Victoria
The federal Defence Department has confirmed on the record that 100 Australian Defence Force troops were on standby for “potential requests” for assistance with Victoria’s hotel quarantine program, contradicting claims made by Premier Daniel Andrews.
The public statement backs up The Australian’s report on Thursday, based on Defence Department records, that at least 100 defence force personnel were ready to enforce compliance at Victoria’s quarantine hotels but were not deployed to assist with the bungled program now blamed for fuelling the state’s deadly second wave of COVID-19.
Mr Andrews dismissed the article on Thursday as “anonymous reporting”.
In a statement released on Friday morning, a Defence Department spokesperson said: “On 27 March 2020, the Chief of the Defence Force issued orders for the ADF to be prepared to provide at short-notice 100 personnel to each state (and 50 in smaller jurisdictions) to support potential requests for assistance from the states and territories for quarantine compliance monitoring, and checking of self-isolation orders,” the spokesperson said.
“The support to quarantine compliance within Australia is conducted in support of, and co-ordinated by, the state and territory authorities.”
Read more here
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Imogen Reid 10.20am: Palaszczuk ‘walking fine line with Berejiklian’
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has weighed in on the tension growing between the Premiers of New South Wales and Queensland over the announcement of a potential border closure.
Mr Dutton said it was understandable that NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian “would be a bit miffed” after not being notified by QLD Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk of the move.
“When you get a Premier like Annastacia Palaszczuk making announcements about border closures when Gladys Berejiklian is doing a press conference and she is caught out, the question is asked of her and she knows nothing about it, she hadn’t been contacted by Queensland, well you would imagine she would be a bit miffed,” Mr Dutton said.
“There is a growing mood here in Queensland at the moment … of people who say if the doctors are saying close the borders or put in place this regime, fair enough, but there is a lot of politics being played in Queensland at the moment by the State Government here in relation to the issue.
“You see brochures now going out into letterboxes in marginal seats and what not, and Annastacia Palaszczuk is walking a fine line here. People will be cynical if they think these decisions are being made for political reasons and her break down in the relationship with the New South Wales Premier, particularly for those who live in the Tweed or on the Gold Coast, is negatively impacting on those lives and businesses and it is unacceptable.”
It comes as reports of a hard closure for Queensland surfaced this morning despite Mr Berejiklian saying she had not been contacted by Ms Palaszczuk.
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Imogen Reid 10.00am: Cruising Yacht Club closes for second time
Sydney’s Cruising Yacht Club has closed for a second time after a member tested positive to coronavirus.
The CYC was closed last month when a member and their partner tested positive for the virus.
According to a statement released by the club’s Commodore, Paul Billingham, on Thursday, the latest case had not attended the Club in recent weeks, but their partner had sailed twice, on Sunday and Wednesday, and attended a committee meeting on Tuesday night.
“We have therefore decided to send those persons who attended the committee meeting off for testing, and as a precautionary measure, close the Club whilst we await the results,” Mr Billingham said.
“Unlike the last incident we do not (as yet) have a confirmed case of a person with COVID-19 visiting the Club and we have not been contacted by NSW Health. We are however applying an abundance of caution in case any tests come back positive.”
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Anne Barrowclough 9.40am: Auckland cluster spreads 210 km south
New Zealand’s new coronavirus cluster appears to have spread from Auckland after a case was confirmed in the south Waikato town of Tokoroa with two other probable cases.
South Waikato Mayor Jenny Shattock confirmed to the website Stuff that her council was advised at around 5.30pm (3.30pm AEST) on Thursday following a staff member potentially being linked with a known Auckland case.
“We were notified last night by the regional Civil Defence controller who had a phone call from the Ministry of Health,” she said.
A source at the Waikato DHB also told Stuff that a case of COVID-19 has now been confirmed in Tokoroa, 209 km south of Auckland, and two staff members at Tokoroa Medical Centre have gone into self-isolation.
It emerged on Thursday that some of the Auckland cluster had travelled to Rotorua while infected. Tokoroa is just 57km from the popular tourist town.
Tokoroa is currently under Stage 2 restrictions along with the rest of NZ except for Auckland, which is under lockdown.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will announce at around 5.30pm local time (3.30pm AEST) whether lockdown restrictions, due to end at midnight local time tonight, will be extended.
READ MORE: NZ braces for longer lockdown
Imogen Reid 9.20am: Masks won’t be mandatory: Berejiklian
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian says face masks will not be made mandatory despite the growing numbers of cases reported in the state daily.
Ms Berejiklian told Nine’s Today “we are not at that place yet,” saying masks were the last line of defence against the virus.
“What we really want people to do first and foremost is to come forward and get tested and isolate for two weeks if they have been asked to do so,” she said.
“That is the most critical thing we need people to do.
“If you have a virus and symptoms and you think you are OK walking around in a mask, that is really dangerous. Masks have a role to play but they are not the only role.”
Ms Berejiklian said the state government’s biggest concern are cases of coronavirus without a traceable source.
“The one thing that worries me is for six weeks we have been doing really well but every week we are getting a couple of cases with no clear identifiable source and that worries us,” she said.
“My strongest message is if you live in South Western or Western Sydney and you have the slightest symptom or you have been exposed as a close contact to one of those venues that have been announced please come forward and get tested and stay home for two weeks.”
READ MORE: Pupils ‘saw virus coming’
Imogen Reid 9.10am: NSW cases ‘10 times higher than reported’
An epidemiologist from the University of Melbourne says the number of COVID-19 cases in New South Wales is likely to be 10 times higher than what is being reported.
Tony Blakely told the ABC that the rise in mystery cases is indicative of “silent transmission.”
“If they’ve got an average of 20 [cases per day] in the last week, that means that at any one point in time, there’s about 200 other cases out there that we don’t know about. Basically, 10 times the daily count,” he said.
“If you’ve got a case that pops up and you don’t trace it back to its source, and you assume that tracking has been done well it means it’s come from silent transmission.”
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has previously expressed her concern over the rise in the state’s mystery cases, with 12 recorded in the past week alone.
READ MORE: How the virus is washing through the economy
Rachel Baxendale 8.50am: Victoria records 372 new cases, 14 deaths
Victoria has recorded 372 new cases of coronavirus in the 24 hours to Friday, up from 278 on Thursday, which was the lowest daily case number in 24 day.
There have also been 14 COVID-19 deaths in the 24 hours to Friday – meaning there have been 108 deaths in the past seven days.
The state’s coronavirus death toll is now 289 – 269 of which have occurred since July 5.
#Covid19VicData for 14 August 2020.
— VicGovDHHS (@VicGovDHHS) August 13, 2020
372 new cases of #coronavirus (#COVID19) detected in Victoria in the last 24 hours. We are sad to report that there have been 14 deaths.
More detail will be provided this afternoon. pic.twitter.com/orkOby2h3i
The 372 new cases on Friday cap off nine consecutive days with case numbers below 500 – following the record 725 cases on August 5.
They also bring Victoria’s seven day daily average to 368, down from 379 on Thursday, and the lowest seven day daily average for 20 days – since a seven day daily average of 365 on July 25.
Premier Daniel Andrews will be providing more detail this afternoon.
READ MORE: ADF ‘high priority’ then dismissed
Imogen Reid 8.40am: Berejiklian: I only see Annastacia in National Cabinet
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian says she would welcome further communication with the Queensland premier, following reports of a potential hard border being enforced.
Appearing on Nine’s Today, Ms Berejiklian was asked when she and Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk had last been in contact, to which she responded: “We see each other in National Cabinet and I will leave it at that, Karl.
“She has not called me or contacted me and I do team for the border communities,” she said.
“I would welcome that and we do share border communities and especially, when you have to share hospitals and airports, which is what happened on our Victorian-New South Wales border.”
Ms Berejiklian said “work is absolutely happening” to ensure essential workers on the border are considered.
“We are talking about people’s lives, people’s quality of life, and it is important for decision makers to get it right,” she said.
READ MORE: Berejiklian’s major concern
Staff writers 8.30am: Qantas, Virgin powerless to stop Ruby passengers boarding
As Ruby Princess passengers left the ship and boarded Qantas and Virgin planes, the airlines were powerless to prevent them despite the risk of the passengers spreading the virus around the country.
Both airlines contacted the Australian Border Force and asked for the passenger manifest from the ship to cross-check with their passenger list but were denied the manifest on the grounds of privacy, the ABC reports.
Qantas also asked the ABF to stop the passengers from boarding but was told that could not be done either.
The Ruby Princess was eventually responsible for 662 infections and at least 21 attributable deaths after dozes of passengers flew across Australia after the ship docked in Sydney.
Meanwhile flight and cabin crew were becoming increasingly concerned at seeing passengers on their flights with Ruby Prince baggage tags, and others talking about their trip.
Teri O’Toole from the Flight Attendants Association of Australia (FAAA) told the ABC she was contacted by a Qantas air steward to relay concern about the QF3 Sydney-Honolulu flight, leaving on March 22.
“One of the crew who were told at the QF3 pre-flight briefing that there was the possibility of cruise ship passengers being on the flight became so upset that she was removed from the flight,” she said.
READ MORE: Come clean on COVID fiasco
Jacquelin Magnay 7.55am: Brits dash back from France after quarantine decision
The British government faces a public backlash and increasing diplomatic tensions across the Channel after adding France, the country’s favourite holiday destination, to the list of countries travellers must self isolate for two weeks after visiting.
The announcement was made on Twitter by Transport Secretary Grant Schapps late Thursday evening, giving just over a full day’s notice for when the restrictions come into force at 4am on Saturday.
“You must self isolate for 14 days coming back from France, said Mr Schapps.
Data shows we need to remove France, the Netherlands, Monaco, Malta, Turks & Caicos & Aruba from our list of #coronavirus Travel Corridors to keep infection rates DOWN. If you arrive in the UK after 0400 Saturday from these destinations, you will need to self-isolate for 14 days.
— Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP (@grantshapps) August 13, 2020
As many as half a million Britons are believed to be holidaying in France at the moment and face having to cut short their summer break in a mad dash home in the next few hours. Other countries added to the quarantine list are: The Netherlands, Monaco, Malta, Turks and Caicos and Aruba. Belgium, Spain and Portugal were already on the quarantine list.
Mr Schapps has just returned from his own holiday in Spain and had to isolate on his return for two weeks.
Britain imposed the new rules after the French health ministry reported 2699 new cases in the past 24 hours. But as is the case across much of Europe, the new infections appear to be positive cases in younger people who are not experiencing a serious illness and being hospitalised. The French death rates have been stable for nearly six weeks.
France is now expected to retaliate with a similar two week quarantine for British arrivals into France, meaning business travellers or holiday-makers may face a total of four weeks in self isolation by crossing the Channel.
Britain’s seemingly ad hoc, last minute response to border and quarantine rules has frustrated a weary British public. The response comes as the UK cases have risen slightly to about 1000 new infections a day. At its peak in March, an estimated 250,000 Londoners were believed to have had the virus, but were never tested. (At the time only the most serious cases in hospitals were tested).
The new rules add further chaos to the pandemic handling after Britain had to revise the coronavirus death rate because death figures from England had been artificially inflated. The country’s death tally is now just over 41,300, down from 46,700 because England was including deaths of anyone who had ever returned a positive coronavirus test, even if they died in a motor vehicle accident.
READ MORE: How COVID has changed dating
Remy Varga 7.45am: St Basil’s resident passes away
Filia Xynidakis, 77, is the latest resident of St Basil’s Home for the Aged to pass away since the facility became one of Victoria’s worst aged care clusters.
Daughter Klery Loutas described her mother as a loving, caring and selfless woman who prioritised family above all else and wasn’t intimidated by anything.
Filia is among dozens of St Basil’s residents who’ve passed away in recent weeks, largely due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
But she didn’t contract COVID-19 at the Fawkner facility, with her family instead telling The Australian five days of neglect saw dehydration accelerate her dementia.
The neglect occurred when St Basil’s was taken over by federal health authorities on July 22, before Filia was moved to a hospital on July 26.
READ MORE: Five minutes to say goodbye
Erin Lyons 7.40am: Woolies appoints chief medical officer
Woolworths will announce its first chief medical officer today in a bid to protect staff and customers from coronavirus – including creating a national policy on masks or shields.
Dr Rob McCartney will take on the role and have direct input to the Woolworths board executives, Nine newspapers report.
According to the AFR, Dr McCartney’s first task will be to develop a nationwide policy for face coverings.
“There is a plethora of medical information and advice to consider in the planning and implementation of a COVID-safe workplace. This appointment ensures we have an internal expert, with a grounding in medical advice, to help make well-informed, long-term decisions on the safety and wellbeing of our teams and customers,“ Brian Long, general manager of group safety, health and wellbeing at the supermarket giant, told the publication.
According to Dr McCartney’s LinkedIn profile, he is a physician who has specialised in occupational and environmental medicine for more than two decades.
READ MORE: Pandemic puts strain on marriages
Imogen Reid 7.30am: Sydney school pupil tests positive
A school in a Sydney suburb linked to two coronavirus clusters has closed after a student tested positive for COVID-19.
St Vincent’s College in Potts Point confirmed a student had contracted the virus last night. The campus will be shut while health authorities conduct contact tracing and the school is cleaned.
“We received confirmation of a positive COVID-19 student in our College Community. From the outset of the pandemic, the College has taken every precaution in line with Government policy to minimise risk,” the school said in a statement.
“This is now however the circumstance we are dealing with and we are well prepared to implement our contingency plans.”
The school is in the same suburb as the Thai Rock and Apollo restaurants which have been linked to previous cases.
READ MORE: Bosses brave for third wave
Imogen Reid 7.15am: $100bn needed to fight virus: WHO
The World Health Organisation has warned at least $100 billion will be needed to fund new tools to fight coronavirus.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the COVID-19 pandemic will cost the global economy $375 billion a month, and predicted a loss over two years of over $12 trillion.
“If we don’t get rid of the virus everywhere, we can’t rebuild economies anywhere,” Mr Ghebreyesus said.
“The sooner we stop the pandemic, the sooner we can ensure internationally interlinked sectors like travel, trade and tourism can truly recover.”
He said the world had to work together as it moved forward in the COVID-19 pandemic, rather than focusing on “how to get back to normal.”
Mr Ghebreyesus said a greater financial investment will be needed to find and test multiple vaccine candidates.
“When a successful vaccine is found, there will be greater demand than there is supply,” he said.
“Excess demand and competition for demand is already creating vaccine nationalism, and risk of price gouging.”
The British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said his government is prepared to be “ruthless” over quarantine rules, after he was asked whether France would be removed from the UK’s safe-travel list.
“We’ve got to be absolutely ruthless about this, even with our closest and dearest friends and partners around the world,” he said.
The UK government pushed on with the decision to remove France from the travel corridor list, along with the Netherlands, Malta, Turks & Caicos and Aruba.
It comes after France recorded 2,669 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, setting a new post-lockdown daily high.
A German premier has been forced to apologise over a delay in thousands of coronavirus test results.
Bavarian Premier Markus Soeder admitted the blunder, which left 44,000 people waiting for more than a week to get their results after receiving a free COVID-19 test, including 1000 who tested positive.
Many of those who tested were travellers returning to Bavaria after their holidays.
Spain’s daily infections have spiked once again, jumping up from 1,690 to 2,935 cases on Thursday.
However, officials have argued that the situation is manageable and have insisted the rise is not a second wave.
The Madrid region led the tally with 848 new infections.
“The number of known cases keeps rising in Spain, but it is a mild rise that allows the implementation of control measures,” Health Emergency Coordinator Fernando Simon said.
Globally, there have been more than 20.7 million people infected with the virus, while the total number of COVID-19 deaths is 751,399.
READ MORE: Thought crimes in the time of coronavirus
Imogen Reid 6.45am: Third positive case at Liverpool Hospital
A third staff member from the Liverpool Hospital in Greater Western Sydney has tested positive for COVID-19.
The staff members with coronavirus are in isolation and all their close contacts have been identified.
The first case is linked to a known cluster, while NSW Health’s contact tracing team continues to work to identify how the other two workers contracted the virus.
The state’s health authority has advised anyone who was at the hospital on 6 August from 7am to 3pm, 7 August from 7am to 3pm, 9 August 5am to 1.30pm to get tested should symptoms develop.
“There is no evidence that there is ongoing risk in the hospital, and patients should continue to visit the hospital to receive their medical care,” NSW Health said.
Health authorities are investigating the source of a second case of coronavirus confirmed in a person who worked at the Dooleys Lidcombe Catholic Club while infectious.
NSW Health is advising anyone who attended the Club during the following times is considered a close contact who must self-isolate for 14 days, get tested and monitor their symptoms:
Friday 7 August from 5pm to 6.30am on Saturday 8 August
Saturday 8 August 4.30pm to 11.30pm
Sunday 9 August 1pm to 9pm
Monday 10 August 12pm to 9.30pm.
“Close contacts must remain in isolation for 14 days after they last attended the club, even if they test negative for COVID-19,” NSW Health said.
READ MORE: Boomers will test aged-care foundations
Craig Greaves 6.00am: NZ braces for longer lockdown
Jacinda Ardern’s cabinet will debate extending a lockdown of Auckland into next week after another rise in COVID-19 cases sparked a testing blitz and an investigation into whether the virus entered the country on the packaging of frozen goods.
After 102 days without community transmission made New Zealand a poster child for COVID-19 management, the Prime Minister’s elimination strategy is under pressure as it confronts an infection rate that exceeds Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia. In an escalating cluster in the nation’s biggest city, 13 new cases of community transmission were detected on Thursday in addition to four on Tuesday.
The 17 cases brings to 36 the number of active cases in New Zealand, toping Queensland’s 13 active cases and the 10 cases in South Australia and Western Australia.
Ms Ardern, speaking before Friday’s cabinet meeting, warned the current cluster was likely to grow before it was brought under control. A stage-three lockdown was imposed on Tuesday after the initial four cases were detected.
Health authorities on Thursday scoured a meat importation business in Auckland as speculation emerged the virus may have been imported from Victoria on frozen packaging. Three of the people who tested positive are employees at the Americold warehouse in the suburb of Mount Wellington. Seven other new cases are family members of the employees from the warehouse.
Another person who returned a positive test is an employee of the Mount Eden firm Finance Now.
READ the full story here.
John Ferguson 5.45am: Tapes could be key to quarantine clues
Recordings of key discussions on planning for the failed hotel quarantine system are expected to have been made by Victorian emergency services chiefs.
It is not known exactly what was recorded but the tapes could provide crucial information for the board of inquiry into the hotel quarantine disaster.
There has been intense debate about who knew what — and when — about Victoria’s failure to seek or accept Australian Defence Force help during the state’s first wave of COVID-19.
Senior Victorian government figures have known for weeks that the State Control Centre discussions are routinely recorded.
Recordings are made in the control centre under protocols that enable maximum accountability during disasters such as bushfires and now the coronavirus pandemic.
The Australian understands that the recording policy was in place in late March as Emergency Management Victoria was grappling with how to deal with returning overseas travellers.
READ the full story here.
Stephen Lunn 5.30am: ‘Hubris’ after early aged care cases
The Morrison government displayed “a degree of self-congratulation and even hubris” about the aged-care sector in the lead-up to the COVID-19 outbreak in Victoria that has so far left 170 residents dead, the aged-care royal commission has heard.
Ending three days examining how nursing homes had managed during the coronavirus pandemic, Peter Rozen QC noted the sector continued to be unprepared even today.
The earlier experiences at Sydney’s Newmarch House and Dorothy Henderson Lodge — where 23 residents had died in total — had not been learnt when the outbreak hit Victoria.
“The lessons of those two outbreaks were not properly conveyed to the sector and as a result the sector was not properly prepared in June 2020 when we witnessed high levels of community transmission of the virus in Melbourne,” Mr Rozen said.
READ the full story here.
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