Australia news LIVE Victoria warned of possible lockdown extension due to COVID surge restrictions for parts of Queensland ahead of NRL grand final NSW tornado clean-up begins
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Double-dosed Australians should be free to leave the country without seeking permission from next month, several Liberal MPs argue, ahead of a national cabinet meeting on Friday that is set to progress plans to end more than 18 months of hardline restrictions.
The nation’s borders have been shut since March 2020 following the first domestic outbreak of the coronavirus, with residents seeking to leave the country required to apply to the federal government for a travel exemption for specific reasons.
Liberal MPs want to end the requirement for Australians to get an exemption to travel overseas.Credit:AP
About 210,679 Australians have been granted approval to fly overseas in that time, according to Home Affairs department data, with 122,131 applications rejected.
Major airlines have opened international bookings for December, but have warned several issues will need to be sorted, including recognition of vaccines not recognised by Australian health authorities, hotel quarantine caps for un-vaccinated travellers and negative pre-departure testing.
Read the full story here.
As cases climb and stay-at-home restrictions continue, Melbourne is expected to become the most locked-down city in the world next week.
That title is currently held by Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires.
We are asking readers to send us a one-word response to this fact. Dystopian? Cramped? Sorrow?
Let us know.
A COVID-19 outbreak at a Newcastle maternity ward and neonatal intensive care unit has grown to six parents.
A mother, who was a patient at the John Hunter Hospital, first tested positive on September 26.
The woman’s close and casual contacts on the maternity ward and the NICU, where her child is being cared for, were told to isolate.
Since then, a further five parents have tested positive while in isolation.
Medical controller for Hunter New England Health, Dr Paul Craven, said the babies in the NICU were considered to be low-risk for exposure and all have so far tested negative.
“The babies continue to receive high-quality care from our dedicated nursing staff and neonatologists,†he said.
“Parents in isolation have access to the NICU’s ... camera system, which allows them to log on and see their baby 24-hours-a-day.â€
All staff were wearing PPE while caring for the families and have so far tested negative.
NRL CEO Andrew Abdo is doing the media rounds this morning.
As we mentioned earlier, the NRL grand final is due to be held in Brisbane on Sunday. However, Queensland is on high alert after a string of recent COVID-19 cases.
NRL boss Andrew Abdo. Credit:Edwina Pickles
Mr Abdo was asked on the Today show what the plan is for this weekend.
Here’s what he had to say:
Obviously, we’re cognisant of the fact the Queensland government will make decisions on the public health orders ... and we’ll be ready to go.
At this stage, the 75 per cent cap [on stadium attendees in Brisbane], if that drops to 50 per cent, our aim is to still continue playing on Sunday.
If there is a lockdown, and we see the infection rates rise, then we will have to react accordingly.
The contingency would be to potentially postpone the match and play the match in Townsville in front of a crowd there if it is a lot safer.
As we get closer to Sunday, it becomes much harder ... we are watching this on an hourly basis and we will continue to do so.
In case you missed it, Victorian health authorities identified a number of new COVID-19 exposure sites last night, including several early learning centres and a gym.
Truganina Early Learning Centre in Melbourne’s west was declared a tier-1 or close contact exposure site for Friday, September 24 between 8am and 4.30pm.
Anyone who attended the centre during that timeframe has to immediately get tested for COVID-19 and quarantine for 14 days, regardless of whether they receive a negative test result.
Goodstart Early Learning Centre in Braybrook, also in Melbourne’s west, was also declared a tier-1 site for Monday, September 27 between 8am and 3.30pm. As was Great Beginnings Taylors Lake at Keilor, in the city’s north west, over three days between 8am and 5.30pm: from Monday, September 20 through to Wednesday, September 22.
Amiga Montessori daycare centre at Reservoir, in Melbourne’s north, was also declared tier 1 for Thursday, September 23 between 9am and 4.30pm.
And a gym at Maddingley, a suburb of Bacchus Marsh (about 60 kilometres north west of Melbourne), was declared tier 1 for Monday, September 27 between 1pm and 3pm.
A full list of Victorian exposure sites can be found here.
As we reported yesterday, Sydney schools are set to reopen a week earlier than originally anticipated off the back of NSW’s high levels of vaccination.
The city’s youngest and oldest school students (those in kindergarten, years 1 and 12) will head back to the classroom on October 18.
NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell. Credit:James Brickwood
NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell was on Seven’s breakfast show Sunrise earlier and was asked if bringing the back-to-school plan forward by a week will cause any disruptions, given only fully vaccinated teachers will be allowed on site.
Here’s her response:
We said at the end of August that we want all of our staff to be vaccinated fully and I know that many of our teachers are.
Every day in the classroom is important. It’s great [to get back to face-to-face learning] for our teachers and parents but, most importantly, our students who I know can’t wait to get back in the classroom to see their friends.
There really is no excuse not to be fully vaccinated [by the deadline]. Certainly, the teachers that I speak to are keen to get back into the classroom
Melbourne’s road out of lockdown might drag on longer if a leap in COVID-19 cases linked to illegal home gatherings and parties at the grand final long weekend becomes a trend.
Victoria recorded 1438 new cases on Thursday â€" 488 more than Wednesday and by far the highest daily total on record. Contact tracing interviews revealed about 500 of the new cases may have stemmed from gatherings on Friday and Saturday. Five deaths were also recorded.
COVID-19 response commander Jeroen Weimar described the weekend’s rule-breaking as a city-wide superspreading event that pushed the virus into new pockets of Melbourne.
He said it could result in case numbers reaching the upper range of the Burnet Institute’s outbreak modelling, though one of the lead modellers cautioned against reading too much into one day’s data.
Read more about the situation unfolding in Victoria here.
A tornado left a path of destruction in the NSW Central West and hail was reported in Sydney’s north-west yesterday, with severe thunderstorm warnings issued for much of the state.
“There are reports of damage to houses, powerlines and trees around the Clear Creek area, north north-east of Bathurst,†the Bureau of Meteorology said of the tornado on Thursday afternoon.
A tornado in Bathurst on Thursday afternoon. Credit:OnScene
It said reports of damage stretch 25 to 30 kilometres, with the path running roughly north west.
BOM spokesman Daniel Barty said he “can’t say†the tornado was on the ground the whole time, but the distance is a track map “from the first report of damage to the last report of damage that we know of so farâ€.
She said tornadoes in general are “pretty rare†and localised at an even smaller scale than thunderstorms.
Read more about the damage here.
Health experts are backing the Queensland government’s decision not to throw the state into lockdown after multiple virus clusters arose at once, but say the threshold for doing so is approaching rapidly.
Queensland recorded six new cases of COVID-19 yesterday, four linked to the so-called aviation cluster and two others in separate individuals who caught the virus interstate.
The corner of Albert and Elizabeth streets in Brisbane’s CBD. An infectious case visited multiple sites in the vicinity recently.Credit:Tony Moore
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk had foreshadowed an “important announcement†at Thursday’s press conference, raising speculation a lockdown would be announced.
However the state was spared, instead seeing level two restrictions imposed â€" including a cap of 30 people at private homes, a return of the four-square-metre rule for pubs and cafes, and a slashing of sport stadium capacities by 25 per cent, which means thousands of ticket-holders will miss Sunday’s NRL grand final.
Pressed on the issue, Ms Palaszczuk strongly denied the government had avoided going into lockdown in part to ensure the NRL final went ahead.
More on the situation unfolding in Queensland here.
Good morning and thanks for your company.
It’s Friday, October 1. I’m Broede Carmody and I’ll be anchoring our live coverage for the first half of the day.
Here’s everything you need to know before we get started.
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