Coronavirus Australia live news: ‘Mystery cases’ cause for alarm as Victoria records 397 new cases, Stage 4 restrictions loom
Daniel Andrews has warned dozens of ‘mystery cases’ are now the biggest challenge facing Victoria’s health authorities.
- Victoria set for Stage 4 restrictions
- Hospitalisation cases at 399 nationally
- Victoria records 397 new cases, three deaths
- Man linked to NSW pub cluster dies
- Emergency workers fall victim to virus
Welcome to live coverage of the continuing coronavirus crisis. Victoria has recorded 397 new cases of COVID-19 overnight as the government looks set to announce Stage 4 restrctions. Meanwhile, a man linked to a NSW pub cluster has died.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has warned dozens of “mystery cases” of coronavirus are now the biggest challenge facing the state’s health authorities.
Victoria recorded 397 new infections and another three deaths in the 24 hours to Saturday amid growing alarm about the number of infections which cannot be traced to a known source.
While the state’s 49 mystery cases appeared small, Mr Andrews said the actual figure was likely to be significantly higher
“You cannot be certain if there is even more further community transmission, more mystery cases out there. That is in some respects our biggest challenge,” Mr Andrews said on Saturday.
“No-one wants to see large numbers reported in any context, but if you track back where the origin of that was wearing a whole different category to community transmission or mystery cases where you just can’t work out how the person got it. That is a real concern.”
There are now 5,919 active cases across Victoria, with 379 patients in hospital.
The contagion that has spread like wildfire throughout Victoria’s aged care homes was another major concern, Mr Andrews said.
Despite more than 1,000 active cases in the aged care sector and Victorian health authorities taking over “entire workforces”, the Premier refused to blame the management responsible for the facilities at the centre of the outbreak.
“And can I just say, I know people, people who may have responsibility for some of these facilities, are hurting. And there’s not much to be gained by trying to apportion blame,” he said.
“All governments, all agencies are working together as closely as we possibly can to have one focus and that is on residents, their well-being, their health and by extension the well-being of families who are obviously concerned and very keen to get as much information as quickly as they possibly can.”
The three latest deaths — which take the state’s death toll to 116 — have all been linked to the aged care sector.
Police Minister Lisa Neville lashed out those Victorians who continued to flout rules, singling out those who put fast food and brothel visits before public health.
Listing a raft of penalties handed out by police in recent days, Ms Neville said the behaviour of some people was “appalling and unacceptable and does need to stop.”
“Can I be really clear, just in case there is any doubt at all, that there is absolutely no reason or need to drive from Melbourne to Wodonga to have a Big Mac,” Ms Neville said.
At least 270 people have been fined in Victoria for failing to wear masks in public.
The nation’s COVID-19 death toll stands at 399, following the death of an 83-year-old NSW man linked to the Crossroads Hotel outbreak.
Deputy Chief Medical Officer Professor Michael Kidd said, said the COVIDSafe app had been used to identify two new cases of coronavirus, including a case related to the Mounties Club in NSW.
As the day unfolded:
Dennis Shanahan 11.15pm: Morrison proposes truce over border closures
Scott Morrison has pulled the Commonwealth out of the High Court challenge against Western Australia’s border closures started by Queensland businessman and former federal MP, Clive Palmer.
The Prime Minister has talked to the West Australian Labor Premier, Mark McGowan, and proposed a “pandemic” truce based on co-operation between the States and Commonwealth Governments aimed at avoiding a constitutional fight.
In a letter to the Premier Mr Morrison said given the circumstances of the pandemic and decisions on border closures being “taken in good faith” he had decided the Commonwealth would withdraw its in-principle support for the High Court challenge and work with the states on a series of principles governing border closures.
Mr McGowan and Federal Labor have publicly called on the Morrison Government to withdraw the Commonwealth from the High Court action by the billionaire mining magnate who is arguing the border restrictions are contrary to section 92 of the constitution which provides for freedom of movement between the states.
The Commonwealth joined the challenge in opposing WA’s hard border closures.
READ MORE: Viral panic just as dangerous in second wave
Dennis Shanahan 9pm: Victoria appears set to move to Stage 4 lockdown
Victoria is expected to go into the highest level of coronavirus lockdown since the COVID-19 crisis hit Australia – Stage 4 restrictions – in the early hours of Wednesday.
An announcement on the new level of restrictions aimed at halting Victoria’s spiralling coronavirus infection and death rates is expected on Sunday or Monday.
Victoria’s dramatic collapse on coronavirus is threatening any national economic recovery and has led to Victorians being blocked from travelling to other parts of Australia.
The tough new restrictions, similar to the New Zealand lockdown preventing movement and business, are expected to last for another six weeks and would close all but essential businesses and send high-school students back to learning from home.
Read the full story here.
John Ferguson 8.30pm: Victorian industry braces for more restrictions
Victorian industry is bracing for a hard lockdown amid soaring coronavirus cases.
Cabinet ministers have been discussing the next phase of lockdowns at the weekend with a clampdown on key business sectors now high on the Andrews government’s agenda.
Multiple sources have said the government is anxiously trying to work out how to stem the rising tide of cases that have largely swept Melbourne’s northwest and west.
The battle against the virus is being fought on two levels; first the attempts to stem the loss of life in the aged care sector.
Second, to determine how to deal with the rapid spread of the virus in areas like meatworks, supermarket distribution and health campuses.
An industry leader told The Australian that government figures have started briefing companies about the impending hardening of the lockdown.
“The only question is how hard they go,’’ the source told The Australian.
The construction industry has been lobbying government to prevent any further restrictions.
Speculation of a harder lockdown is being fuelled by unsourced, viral test messages being sent around Melbourne on Saturday night.
The messages do not appear to have any official validity but point to a harder lockdown.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews on Saturday indicated the coronavirus numbers were difficult to both track and fathom.
It is understood there are deep concerns about the impact on the supply chains in Australia.
There is substantial spread of the virus in key distribution warehouses, affecting major companies that feed into the national economy.
There also are concerns about the supply of meat to Australia.
This is because Victoria has been a key destination for beef and sheep after the NSW/Queensland drought.
ALSO READ: Aged-care COVID heroes the latest victims
Courtney Walsh 5.47pm: Magpies coach costs side $50,000 for breach
Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley has cost the Magpies a $50,000 fine for breaching the AFL’s coronavirus protocols by playing tennis with a former Australian Open quarter-finalist.
The Magpies became the fifth club in two days to be issued with a heavy sanction for a breach of rules designed to minimise the risk of a COVID-19 infection.
Buckley apologised via a statement issued by Collingwood. “At the time, we believed we had followed and adhered to the protocols as required but after returning to the hotel and re addressing the circumstances it became crystal-clear that we had breached the current AFL protocols,” he said.
Buckley and assistant coach Brenton Sanderson played a doubles match in Perth against Australian Fed Cup captain Alicia Molik and another party on Friday in Perth.
It was only later they realised they had breached the AFL’s protocols by playing with someone outside the Magpies “bubble”.
Half of the penalty is suspended and will be triggered if there is another breach of the league’s COVID-19 guidelines.
AFL legal counsel Andrew Dillon said the Collingwood coaches were forthcoming in self-reporting the breach.
FULL REPORT: Magpies coach costs club $50k after tennis match
Erin Lyons 4.45pm: Pets in trouble because of quarantine rush
Getting home during a pandemic is hard enough for humans living abroad, but even more challenging if you have four legs and fur.
Pets have been left stranded overseas after their Australian expat owners were forced to come home because of COVID-19.
The debacle has become even more complicated in recent weeks due to the hard lockdown and inbound flight restrictions in Melbourne, home to the nation’s only pet quarantining hub, the Mickleham Post Entry Quarantine Facility.
Cats and dogs arriving from overseas must undergo a minimum 10-day quarantine period at the facility.
And animal lovers are expected to encounter yet another roadblock next month, with the Mickleham quarantine hub likely to reach capacity by mid-September.
NCA NewsWire
FULL REPORT: Pets left stranded as Australia’s only quarantine facility approaches capacity
Anthony Piovesan 4.16pm: Childcare threatened as Vic centres struggle
Childcare attendance is dwindling “far below” a sustainable threshold as outbreaks in Melbourne early-learning centres grow.
Australian Education Union representative Cara Nightingale told NCA NewsWire childcare centres needed 75 per cent enrolment to remain viable, but numbers had plummeted since the second lockdown.
“Childcare centres cannot be sustainable moving forward like this,” she said.
“Childcare was the first sector to have JobKeeper taken away – it’s affected a sector where 97 per cent is female-dominated and also one of the lowest-paid in the country.
“Families are now in a position where childcare is too expensive, but also can’t go to work without childcare and it’s a vicious cycle that’s putting lot of pressure on families.”
Since January 1 there have been 82 cases of coronavirus linked to outbreaks at 13 childcares in metropolitan Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire.
NCA Newswire
ALSO READ: Mums warned of ‘career destruction’
Max Maddison 4.05pm: Almost 400 being treated in hospitals
Nearly 400 of Australia’s coronavirus cases are in hospital, including 50 people in intensive care, according to deputy chief medical officer Professor Michael Kidd.
Speaking at a daily briefing on Saturday, Professor Kidd said 399 patients were currently in hospitals across Australia, with 28 people on ventilators.
In addition, Professor Kidd said the government mobile-phone app had allowed authorities to identify two new cases in Sydney, including one of those related to the Mounties Club revealed by NSW Health earlier today.
“This is a timely reminder of the importance of the COVIDSafe app,” Professor Kidd said.
READ: NSW man linked to pub cluster dies
Ellen Ransley 3.35pm: Woman accused of lying at Queensland border
A Victorian woman has been charged after she allegedly gave false information to police upon her arrival into Queensland.
Officers from task force Sierra Linnet reviewed the border declaration of a 51-year-old woman who told authorities she was travelling into Queensland from Victoria for “essential work purposes”.
Gympie police went to an address at 11am on Saturday and spoke to the woman. Further investigations revealed that she lied at the border about her purpose for entering Queensland, police said.
She has since been taken to hotel quarantine.
She was charged with one count of failing to comply with a COVID-19 border direction, and was issued a Notice to Appear at Gympie Magistrates Court on November 30.
Investigations are ongoing.
NCA NewsWire
ALSO READ: Queensland records new case
Ellen Ransley 2.30pm: Truck stowaways face charges in Queensland
Two people who allegedly attempted to enter Queensland stowed away in the back of a truck are set to be charged.
Police are investigating the incident after new border restrictions came into effect early on Saturday morning, barring millions of Australians from the sunshine state.
Anyone who lives in, or has visited the Greater Sydney area or Victoria in the last 14 days will be turned away at the Queensland’s borders. Residents who want to return home but have been to any COVID-19 hot spots will have to quarantine in a hotel for 14 days at their own expense.
The closure comes as Queensland this week reported its first cases of COVID-19 community transmission in months.
Deputy Premier and Health Minister Steven Miles said on Saturday that police were investigating the alleged truck stowaway incident.
“They will be charged with breaching COVID travel restrictions,” he said.
“That will send a message to anyone who thinks they can get around our restrictions that police are checking vehicles.
“You will be caught and the penalties are significant.”
Mr Miles added that in the last 24 hours, 81 people had been refused entry to the state.
“Queensland Police intercepted 76 passengers on 76 different flights and we processed 5975 people at our airports,” he said. “Of them, 114 were diverted to hotel quarantine and one was refused entry and turned around at the airport.
“At our road borders, 6745 vehicles were intercepted, 80 people were refused entry and 35 were directed to hotel quarantine.”
Earlier this week push notifications were sent to border declaration pass holders, with police urging residents in the Tweed/Coolangatta area to update their information to ensure ease of access.
Meanwhile, the Northern Territory has designated Greater Brisbane, Ipswich and Logan as coronavirus hot spots as of Saturday morning, the areas joining Victoria, Sydney, the Eurobodalla Shire and Port Stephens.
Anyone travelling or returning to the NT who has visited any of the declared hotspots must enter into a mandatory 14 days quarantine.
NCA NewsWire
Max Maddison 1.45pm: ‘Time for warnings about masks is over’
Police have issued 270 fines to people not wearing masks, as Premier Daniel Andrews says the “time for warnings” is over.
With healthcare workers putting themselves in “harm’s way every shift”, Mr Andrews implored Victorians to follow the rules.
“That is what the vast majority of Victorians are doing. There are some that aren’t. But it is very, very disappointing, and by making selfish choices you may well in fact be putting our healthcare heroes in harm’s way,” Mr Andrews said.
“That just doesn’t make any sense. That is why Victorian Police are not mucking about. The time for warnings as well over, and they will be issuing fines.”
Despite reports that a third of masks had failed testing, Mr Andrews said he hadn’t been briefed on the issue, and would follow it up with his public health department.
“I have had a few questions this week about different types of masks in different settings, but Ambulance Victoria are using them. I think they have been able to resolve those issues and there is now an option to use whichever mask the paramedic believes is most appropriate,” he said.
READ MORE: Face masks — everything you need to know
Max Maddison 1.10pm: People in aged-care sector ‘hurting’
The people responsible for some Victorian aged-care facilities ravaged by coronavirus are “hurting”, but there’s “not much to be gained” by blaming them, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews says.
With 1008 active cases in aged care, and Victorian health authorities taking over “entire workforces” in certain homes, Mr Andrews said the situation in the sector remained “very serious”
“The situation in aged care remains very serious, a very serious challenge in many ways and this is very difficult for residents and families as well,” Mr Andrews said.
“All governments, all agencies are working together as closely as we possibly can to have one focus and that is on residents, their well-being, their health and by extension the well-being of families who are obviously concerned and very keen to get as much information as quickly as they possibly can.”
Over 570 shifts had been worked by hospital nurses across a number of private aged care settings, Mr Andrews said. Yet despite being forced to intervene, he refused to lay the blame with anyone, instead saying the health, safety and well-being of residents was his main concern.
“And can I just say, I know people, people who may have responsibility for some of these facilities, are hurting. And there’s not much to be gained by trying to apportion blame,” he said.
READ MORE: Home, alone and in hell in aged care
Max Maddison 12.33pm: Victoria’s DCHO returned to former duties
Premier Daniel Andrews insists Victoria’s public health team is united, despite deputy chief health officer Annaliese Van Diemen being returned to her former duties.
“This is a united team and one focused on the biggest challenge any of us have ever faced. Doctor Van Diemen is an eminent person,” Mr Andrews said.
“There are other public health and infectious diseases challenges beyond this. I know it is difficult to think beyond this particular crisis but we must have systems in place that do that otherwise things would not get the appropriate response.”
The restructure of the public health body included three new officials joining Dr Van Diemen as deputy health officers.
READ MORE: Calls for Victoria’s DCHO to resign
Max Maddison 12.14pm: Victorians putting sex, Big Macs before public health
Victorian rule-breakers have copped another tongue lashing from the state’s Police Minister, revealing some are putting fast food and brothel visits before public health.
Listing a raft of penalties handed out by police in recent days, Lisa Neville said the behaviour of some people was “appalling and unacceptable and does need to stop.”
“Can I be really clear, just in case there is any doubt at all, that there is absolutely no reason or need to drive from Melbourne to Wodonga to have a Big Mac,” Ms Neville has told a press conference on Saturday.
“There is absolutely no reason or need to drive from Melbourne to Ballarat for fresh air.”
“They are just three of the fines that we saw issued yesterday, and behaviour that is again, you ask why people, why would people think that is OK, they either don’t care, it can’t be because people aren’t aware of the rules.”
READ MORE: Peter van Onselen — Parliament needs to get back to work
Ellen Ransley 12.05pm: Queensland records one new case, an aged-care worker
An aged care centre remains in lockdown as Queensland records one new case of COVID-19, days after two women who allegedly lied to authorities after returning from interstate hot spots tested positive, having spent eight days out-and-about in Brisbane’s southside.
Deputy Premier and Health Minister Steven Miles said this morning that 11,560 tests had been completed in the past 24 hours.
It comes just one day after the first confirmed case of community transmission since May, a 27-year-old Bellbird Park man tested positive to the virus after dining at the same Sunnybank restaurant as one of the two women.
Read the full story here.
Max Maddison 11.50am: Mystery cases a major concern, says Andrews
Premier Daniel Andrews says there is “real concern” about the number of infections which can’t be tracked to a source, as the state records 397 new cases and three more deaths on Saturday.
Those who have died are a man in his 80s, and two women in their 80s and 90s, taking the number of deaths in the state to 116. It is believed all three are linked to aged care.
But with 49 “mystery cases” — or cases which couldn’t be traced to a known source — Mr Andrews said this posed the “biggest challenge” to health authorities.
“You cannot be certain if there is even more further community transmission, more mystery cases out there. That is in some respects our biggest challenge,” Mr Andrews has told a press conference.
“No-one wants to see large numbers reported in any context, but if you track back where the origin of that was wearing a whole different category to community transmission or mystery cases where you just can’t work out how the person got it. That is a real concern.”
READ MORE: Bernard Salt — We must keep sane and carry on
Christine Kellett 11.35am: Victoria records 397 new cases, three deaths
Victoria has recorded 397 new cases of coronavirus and three more deaths overnight.
Nearly 400 people are in hospital, including 41 people in intensive care. It comes after the state reported more than 700 new infections on Friday.
“There are now 1075 cases among health workers,” Premier Daniel Andrews said on Saturday.
More than 1000 cases are currently active in aged care.
The three people who have died are all aged over 80 and bring the state’s death toll to 116.
READ MORE: Aged care heroes the latest victims
Max Maddison 11.30am: NSW man linked to pub cluster dies
An 83-year-old man connected to the Crossroads Hotel cluster has died from coronavirus-related causes.
The news came as NSW Health reported another 17 new cases of COVID-19, taking the state’s total to 3,584. Deaths remain at 51, with the deceased man to be added to tomorrow’s figures.
Two of the cases are under investigation, while another was acquired with no known source identified. Of the remainder, three cases were from hotel quarantine, two cases attended the Apollo restaurant, two attended the Mounties Club in Mount Pritchard, while seven were acquired from known sources.
One of the cases from the Mounties Club was identified through the COVIDSafe App.
NSW Health said there are now 98 cases associated with Thai Rock Wetherill Park, 57 cases associated with the Crossroads Hotel, eight cases associated with Batemans Bay Soldiers Club, 25 associated with the funeral events and five associated with Mounties in Mount Pritchard. There are 24 cases associated with the Potts Point cluster.
Glenda Korporaal 11am: China relations ‘have never been worse’
Australia could find itself in “extreme jeopardy in a very short space of time” if China were to impose a trading embargo on Australia, Seven Group Holdings director Warwick Smith has warned.
In an interview with The Australian after giving a private presentation to more than 100 business leaders hosted by the Bank of America this week, Mr Smith, who chairs the Business Council’s Leadership Group on China, said that Australia’s relations with its largest trading partner “had never been worse”.
He said Australia’s strong trading relationship with China was based on mutual interest, including China’s demand for Australia’s iron ore and coal, which was reflected in the profit results of mining companies RioTinto and Fortescue Metals this week.
Read the full story here.
Stephen Lunn 10.30am: What life is really like in a Melbourne ICU ward
Both their iPhone alarms ring well before 6am. Both check messages for overnight emergencies at work. Already they are “on”, the adrenaline starting to flow. Their jobs were high stakes before coronavirus. Now COVID-19 adds a layer of complexity, an additional challenge in one of the nation’s most challenging workplaces.
Dan Hadley, a 38 year-old clinical nurse manager at the Royal Melbourne Hospital’s intensive care unit, tiptoes out his door so as not to disturb his three sleeping kids, all under seven. He drives to a spot about 5km from the hospital, parks, and runs the rest of the way. It clears his head, and he admits to being slightly obsessive about his running times. A quick shower and he’s in his office in Parkville, just north of the CBD well before 7am. Breakfast at his desk while working on his daily planner.
Yasmine Ali Abdelhamid, 37, an intensive care specialist in RMH’s ICU, takes the more regular route of breakfast and coffee as she checks emails, arriving at work also before seven in time to clear some paperwork in her role as the unit’s acting deputy director before the 7.30am ward round.
Read our full inside story of a day in the life in a Melbourne ICU ward.
Max Maddison 10am: Virus likely to remain with us forever, warns Fauci
America’s leading infectious disease expert is “cautiously optimistic” that a COVID-19 vaccine undergoing clinical trials will be successful, yet he warns the virus is likely to remain forever.
Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr Anthony Fauci told a House panel investigating the nation’s response to the pandemic that he expected a vaccine to become available by next year.
Yet he warned the vaccine wouldn’t become widely available as soon as it was developed, and would need to be distributed first to those who needed it the most.
“I believe, ultimately, over a period of time in 2021, that Americans will be able to get it,” Dr Fauci said on Friday, local time.
“I don’t think we will have everybody getting it immediately.”
Federal health authorities in the US are currently undertaking a plan to manufacture 300 million doses of a vaccine on a short timeline, named Operation Warp Speed.
In addition, Dr Fauci said because the virus was so infectious, it was unlikely to ever go away.
“I do not believe it would disappear because it’s such a highly transmissible virus,” he said.
READ MORE: Vaccine test clear for more volunteers
Max Maddison 9.30am: Global virus death toll tops 675,000
Global cases of coronavirus are poised to exceed 17.5m, as deaths surpass 675,000, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The total number of confirmed cases currently stands at 17,482,778, with global fatalities at 677,017.
While the five-day-average of new cases is falling in the US, daily recorded infections remain around 70,000, with another 67,619 new cases taking the country’s total to 4,494,601 cases, while 152,055 coronavirus-related deaths have been reported.
Cases in Brazil continue to rocket, with 57,837 cases reported overnight. While significantly less than the preceding day, the number of cases continues to climb. Since the first case was reported in late-February, the Jair Bolsonaro-led country has reported 2,610,102 cases, and 91,263 deaths.
Infections are also ballooning in India, as health officials attempt to balance the dual health and economic concerns. Overnight, the country reported 52,783 new cases – its record daily increase.
READ MORE: Making the most of the future
Robyn Ironside 9.10am: Joyce defends work travel as net takes off
Qantas boss Alan Joyce has blasted doomsday predictions that COVID will kill off corporate travel, insisting businesses need face-to-face interactions to thrive.
The rise of Zoom and Microsoft Teams meetings throughout lockdown periods has led to predictions by the International Air Transport Association that businesses will see travel as an unnecessary expense in the post-pandemic world and dramatically downgrade interstate and overseas work trips.
Speaking at a Griffith University function on the Gold Coast this week, Mr Joyce said there was almost as much pent up demand for business travel as tourism.
Read the full story here.
Alan Kohler 8.40am: Reserve Bank to the rescue as debt emergency
The fact that Australia is now in deflation is bad enough, but two other recent bits of data suggest that “fiscal cliff” doesn’t come close to describing what’s coming, and the government and the RBA will need to change course, radically.
Specifically, the RBA’s balance sheet will have to be used to backstop government income support, writes Alan Kohler.
The Federal Reserve is now fully monetising the US budget deficit — not by buying bonds directly from the US government, but after they’ve been laundered briefly in private ownership. It’s Modern Monetary Theory in practice. It’s here to stay and the same will eventually happen here, after some kicking and screaming perhaps.
Read the full story here.
Dow Jones 8.15am: Virus accelerates plans to put commuters on bikes
Most of Paris was asleep when a team of men in orange overalls fanned out across an avenue in the 11th arrondissement with blowtorches and road paint. They laboured for hours to show Parisians a radical new way to use their 400-year-old street. By daybreak, one lane of regular traffic was gone and the asphalt was lined with rows of freshly stencilled yellow bicycles.
Squads like this one have been dispatched almost nightly across the City of Light since France first lifted its coronavirus lockdown on May 11. By order of the mayor, they are claiming territory from cars and giving it to commuters avoiding public transit. The plan is to give citizens more than 400 miles of pop-up bike lanes throughout Greater Paris that didn’t exist before the pandemic.
“The fact that in the space of a few weeks we’re quite radically changing public space to take room away from cars and give it to bikes is quite stunning,” said Christophe Najdovski, the deputy mayor of Paris for transportation and public spaces.
Normally it would be impossible to move so quickly given the controversy often generated by new bike lanes, which opponents argue take away space for car parking, cause more congestion for drivers and present a safety hazard for pedestrians.
But cities in the world’s hardest-hit countries, from Oakland to Milan to Mexico City, realised all at once that coronavirus lockdowns had opened a window, unique in the postwar era, for urban cycling to gain new ground.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to actually move forward quickly to bring those designs to the streets of their cities in real time,” said Janette Sadik-Kahn, a former commissioner of New York City’s Transportation Department. “What might have been a 2030 plan is now a 2020 plan.”
READ MORE: Proof Australia can manufacture again
Patrick Commins 7.30am: Boomer incomes fall as young enjoy benefits
Baby Boomers are alone among the generations to suffer a fall in income through the COVID-19 crisis, according to Commonwealth Bank analysis of three million households who bank with the lender.
The unprecedented level of government support in response to COVID-19 and the massive take-up of the early access to super schemes boosted average household income overall by 4.2 per cent over the year to the June quarter, the research shows.
Salary income dropped 6.6 per cent on average as the health crisis put hundreds of thousands of Australians out of work. But a 54 per cent surge in average incomes from government benefits versus a year earlier, and a 64 per cent jump in “investment income” — which captures payments from the first withdrawal of up to $10,000 from super under the special early-release scheme — has led to what CBA senior economist Kristina Clifton called a “positive income shock”.
Read the full story here.
David Murray 7am: Queensland teens expose aged-care residents
Hundreds of residents and staff at a Queensland aged-care home have potentially been exposed to COVID-19 in the state’s first known community outbreak in months.
A 27-year-old man from Bellbird Park, southwest of Brisbane, was revealed on Friday as Queensland’s latest coronavirus case, after crossing paths with one of three young women accused of travelling to Melbourne, lying about it and avoiding mandatory quarantine.
He was among a group of six people, including his wife, who ate at the Madtongsan IV restaurant in Sunnybank on July 23. They were seated at a table adjacent to one of the young women who went to Melbourne and was subsequently found to have the coronavirus.
Read the full story, by David Murray and Charlie Peel, here.
Remy Varga 6.30am: Missing isolators tighten screws in Victoria
Further restrictions on Victorians loom after the revelation that one in four people meant to be in self-isolation were busted not at home by door knockers.
Premier Daniel Andrews flagged that “further steps” may need to be taken after the state recorded 627 new coronavirus cases on Friday, with the COVID-19 death toll rising by eight to 112.
Mr Andrews said that, following a “long conversation” with Scott Morrison on Thursday night, federal and Victorian public health experts would work together to identify the source of the state’s growing second wave.
“We could not open up with these numbers, we could not open with significantly less than these numbers,” Mr Andrews said yesterday.
Read the full story here.
Richard Gluyas 6am: Pandemic ‘like a far-fetched horror movie’
Gillian Franklin has resolutely run her Heat Group cosmetics business in Melbourne for two decades through a breast cancer diagnosis, volatile business cycles, a sophisticated cyber attack, intense legal battles and a global financial crisis.
But nothing, she says, comes anywhere near the complex, multidimensional threat of the coronavirus.
“When I’ve confronted other challenges in my career, I was able to scope them out and find a solution,” Franklin tells The Weekend Australian.
“But COVID-19 is like some far-fetched horror movie; it’s quite surreal. We’ve had to recalibrate everything we do.”
While there are some broad similarities with the last recession in the early 1990s, the economy’s whiplash-inducing crash in the June quarter is in a category of its own.
Some economists are convinced that any extension of Victoria’s second lockdown, scheduled to last six weeks this time instead of four weeks, could tip Australia into a third consecutive quarter of negative growth — a grim sequence not seen since the 1982 recession.
Read the full story here.
Jamie Walker 5.10am: Victoria on track to hit 1000 daily cases
COVID-19 cases in Victoria are doubling every 16 days and will top 1000 new infections daily by mid-August on the outbreak’s current trajectory, exclusive modelling for The Weekend Australian shows.
The numbers have been crunched by mathematical biologist Deborah Cromer of the University of NSW’s Kirby Institute, who warns that the virus is uncontained in Melbourne and spreading at a dangerous rate in Sydney.
“I would have to say it is not under control at this point,” Dr Cromer said of the situation in Victoria, where 627 new cases emerged on Friday.
Dr Cromer, who has conducted COVID modelling for NSW Health, said the lockdown in Melbourne had slowed the spread from the alarming point in early July where new case numbers were doubling every five days.
Her calculations show what would have happened had the level-three restrictions not bitten. If unchecked, the transmission rate in Victoria would have hit US-like levels of 5000 new cases a day this weekend and doubled again to 11,544 new cases by next Friday, August 7.
Read the full story here.
Stephen Lunn 5am: Emergency healthcare workers fall victim to virus
Emergency healthcare workers rushed into Victoria’s most COVID-ravaged nursing home have been struck down by the killer virus, prompting a full evacuation of the centre.
Six replacement workers at St Basil’s Homes for the Aged in Melbourne’s north — part of the federal government’s “surge team” hastily assembled when the home’s entire workforce was required to isolate 10 days ago — have tested positive and are now in isolation.
Authorities late on Friday scrambled a fleet of ambulances to transfer the 30 remaining residents, including 20 with dementia, to hospitals around Melbourne.
Highlighting the dangers to which healthcare workers across many settings are being exposed, an emergency doctor in his 30s and a GP in his 60s are in intensive care, both struck down by the virus. And at least six staff from one ward at St Vincent’s Hospital have also tested positive. More than 600 healthcare workers across Victoria are COVID-positive, 65 more on Friday alone, leading to warnings of severe healthcare workforce shortages and proposals to seek assistance from other service sectors including the airline industry.
Read the full story, by Stephen Lunn and Remy Varga, here.
Angelica Snowden 4.45am: Exclusive men’s club shut as NSW outbreak grows
One of Australia’s oldest and most exclusive clubs has been struck by a resurgence of COVID-19 in NSW as outbreaks continue to grow across the state.
The Australian Club, founded in 1838 and located in Sydney’s CBD, was forced to close its doors out of an “abundance of caution” after a staff member tested positive to COVID-19 on Monday.
A spokeswoman for the invitation-only gentlemen’s club — whose members include former governor-general Sir Peter Cosgrove, former prime ministers John Howard and Malcolm Turnbull, and businessman James Packer — said it would be closed until Tuesday.
NSW recorded 21 cases of coronavirus on Friday, with the majority linked to outbreaks in inner Sydney and the state’s west.
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