Australia news LIVE One million Moderna doses coming as outbreak accelerates in Victoria

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G’day everyone. I’m Roy Ward and I’ll be taking over the blog for this afternoon and this evening.

I hope you are all having a nice Sunday afternoon and thanks again for the comments and interactions so far today.

Enjoy the afternoon to come and enjoy this video from the MCG encouraging everyone to get vaccinated.

Thanks for following the blog today, I’m about to hand over to Roy Ward who will keep you updated into the evening. If you’re just tuning in to today’s live blog, here’s what you need to know:

Australia has secured a million doses of the Moderna vaccine from Europe, and they’re set to arrive within the coming week, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has defended her decision to scrap daily press conferences from tomorrow as the state recorded another 1262 new cases and seven deaths, including a man in his 20s.

Victoria has recorded 392 new cases, two-thirds of which were in Melbourne’s northern suburbs. Schools and religious centres are set to transform into pop-up vaccination hubs in the worst-hit areas.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews will detail in a week’s time the road map for getting out of lockdown, with the state currently moving ahead of its predicted date for reaching 70 per cent vaccination status slated for September 25.

Federal Tourism Minister Dan Tehan says Australia will share its QR-code vaccine certificates with its network of embassies this week to ensure the nation’s immigration system is prepared to welcome international travellers later this year. It comes as airports warned foreign airlines are at risk of pulling out of Australia ahead of the border reopening.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said while it was “fantastic news” that the state would receive additional doses of two COVID-19 vaccines in coming weeks, he had not been informed by the Commonwealth that extra vaccines were on the way.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a short time ago that 400,000 additional Pfizer and Moderna doses would be sent to Melbourne’s COVID-19 hotspots, predominantly in the city’s north and west.

Mr Andrews â€" who was conducting a press conference at the time Mr Morrison made his announcement â€" said he had not been advised about the extra jabs before Mr Morrison told reporters in Sydney.

“That’s apparently how our national government works these days, but anyway, I’m delighted to know that, that’s fantastic news,” Mr Andrews said.

“It’s hard to know what to expect really, isn’t it? I didn’t expect that hundreds of thousands of doses that should come to Victoria would have gone to Sydney, but they did.

“Maybe while I was talking to you, there’s a missed call on my phone, I don’t know.

“Let’s get (vaccines) into arms, that’s what I’m about ... Maybe if they’d been ordered last year, maybe they would have been in arms already.”

The Berejiklian government’s green light to outdoor gatherings for vaccinated Sydneysiders has come too late to save Sculpture by the Sea.

For the second year, the popular outdoor event that before COVID-19 would draw up to half a million visitors to the two-kilometre coastal walk from Bondi to Tamarama has been cancelled due to the pandemic lockdowns.

Artists Marina DeBris and Joel Adler.Credit:Rhett Wyman

Organisers are looking for a new date in 2022 after conceding they could not comply with health restrictions and limit crowds to the doubled vaccinated without “doing the unthinkable” and cordoning off the entire coastal walk.

Sculpture by the Sea was originally postponed to October 21 with the same lineup of artists after failing to secure an exemption from the NSW Health Department in 2020.

Founder David Handley said such security levels would have been unpalatable to locals and the broader public who prized access to the shoreline.

“Whilst the government may say major events can happen for the vaccinated, we have no means of controlling that unless we fence off the Bondi coastal walk,” Handley said.

“We would need to have it fenced off or secured by security guards. Even if that was feasible from a cost point-of-view it’s not something we or our stakeholders would want to consider.”

Read the full story here.

The COVID-19 Delta outbreak is growing faster in Victoria than NSW despite the faster and harder lockdown in Victoria, which also started its outbreak with higher vaccination coverage.

Infections are still lower in Victoria than NSW for the same stage of the pandemic, with Victoria reaching a three-day rolling average of 369 daily cases on September 11, the 62nd day since the first case in the community. NSW reached its 62nd day on August 16 with a three-day rolling average of 427.3 daily cases.

But epidemiologists warn Victoria’s outbreak is now accelerating more quickly and is set to overtake NSW unless both vaccination uptake and lockdown compliance improve.

Professor Catherine Bennett, the chair in epidemiology at Deakin University, says this should be the end of arguing over whether the NSW or Victorian approach was better.

“Sydney always took a more of a nutcracker approach, but that didn’t work when it came to Delta,” she said.

“We [Victoria] came in with a sledgehammer, but that still didn’t work. There’s probably not as much difference between, in terms of effectiveness, the sledgehammer, and the nutcracker - I think it was a bit of a distraction for all of us.”

Professor Bennett said both contact tracing and lockdowns worked against the earlier variants of COVID-19 but neither of them had managed to stop the Delta variant, even in combination.

Read the full analysis on the comparison of the outbreaks between the two cities here. 

One million doses of the Moderna vaccine for COVID-19 have been secured by the federal government and are set to arrive in the country within the next week.

The Moderna doses have been sourced from European Union countries and will be directed to local pharmacies. Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said pharmacies would start to receive the doses within two weeks.

“Families will now be able to go along together to their pharmacy to get their vaccinations,” Mr Morrison said.

“As all these extra doses arrive in Australia we’ll see queues for vaccines cut at the more than 9000 places you can get vaccinated. Mum, dad and the kids will also be able to go to their local community pharmacist to get vaccinated as a family all at the same time.”

The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) has recommended Moderna for everyone 12 years and older.

Mr Morrison said there would be enough vaccines in the country by October to have offered everyone a vaccine jab.

Around 3600 community pharmacies across Australia will share in the vaccines. Up to 1800 Pharmacies will begin to receive doses through the week of the September 20. The next 1800 pharmacies will follow shortly after, the federal government said in a statement.

More than two-thirds of Victoria’s 392 new cases on Sunday were reported in Melbourne’s northern suburbs.

There were 255 cases reported in Melbourne’s north, with the City of Hume accounting for a third of the total number of locally acquired cases today.

Associate Professor Daniel O’Brien .Credit:Wayne Taylor

A quarter of the cases reported on Sunday were found in the western suburbs.

Deputy Chief Health Officer Daniel O’Brien said there was a “significant outbreak” connected to the Fitzroy Community School, with at least 30 cases connected to the school, including staff and students.

“Urgent further investigation is going on into that site to obviously make sure that we get that under control and find out the reasons for what looks like a significant outbreak,” he said.

“There are two construction sites that have produced a lot of cases - Panorama in Box Hill with 116 total cases, but presently no further cases yesterday, and the construction site on Exhibition Street, for which there were nine cases in total, but no further cases yesterday which is great.“

Five new cases were also reported in regional Victoria:

One in Greater Geelong who is a primary close contact of a positive case.

One in Mildura who was a close contact already in quarantine.

One in Macedon Ranges, who is connected to the V/Line outbreak.

Two in East Gippsland, but both returned low positive results and could be false positives.

Premier Daniel Andrews says he will detail his road map out of lockdown and towards 80 per cent full vaccination rate in a week’s time.

Mr Andrews said ministers would be receiving more Burnet Institute modelling in the coming days, and the major announcement next week would include information around mandatory vaccination and what businesses can open and when.

He previously promised that once the state reaches 70 per cent of the eligible population having had their first vaccination, there would be an expanded 10-kilometre travel limit, a three-hour exercise limit, and outdoor personal training and private real estate inspections would return.

“We’ll be releasing modelling and will be talking to that in some detail,” Mr Andrews said.

“We’re aiming to deliver on all of the commitments that we had foreshadowed, I don’t have a crystal ball. I can’t guarantee that, but that’s what we’re working towards.

“If we can go further in any areas, we will. That’ll be based on advice but the first thing to do is get to the 70 per cent first dose.”

After being asked if students would return to classrooms in time for term 4, Mr Andrews said he knew “nothing about remote learning was easy” or preferred, but schools would as soon as they could but they had to be safe.

“I want to get kids back in the classroom as quickly as possible,” he said.

“But what I will say to every single parent, whether it be primary school or secondary school parents: I will not send kids back to school against the advice of the medical experts.”

He said the comprehensive road map would include information about ventilation at schools and staggered entry times for students.

Children aged between 12 and 15 years can receive a COVID-19 vaccination in Victoria from Monday.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian has been pressed on her decision to end daily media briefings on the COVID-19 situation, telling journalists the decision is “about good government for the people of NSW”.

Ms Berejiklian said she will front the media “to make sure that people know when there is a major milestone or a major issue or when I feel I need to be accountable”, saying that could be seven days a week or three days.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said her decision to end daily briefings is about “good government”. Credit:Edwina Pickles

She said she thinks people understand that she needs to focus on making decisions over “next few challenging months”.

“I think people would also trust that I would exercise good judgement as to when I should front, as opposed to other people providing that information,” she added.

Asked if she sees any issue in deciding when she needs to be accountable to the public, Ms Berejiklian said: “I have a good team, and if it is a relevant minister outlining information instead of me for a particular day I think that’s completely acceptable.”

She was repeatedly pressed on whether the reason she will be seen less in front of the camera is because she has been called to appear before the ICAC, but said it would “inappropriate to comment on any ongoing matters”.

Back to the Victorian COVID-19 update, Premier Daniel Andrews says the state’s push to get to 70 per cent of first vaccine doses is “ahead” of predictions.

Around 65.5 per cent of Victorians have received a first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Health authorities predicted the state would reach 70 per cent by September 23.

Premier Daniel Andrews said the state was ahead of first dose vaccine targets.Credit:Chris Hopkins

“We said four and a half weeks ago that we wanted to do a million doses over five weeks, and we’re going to beat that by a couple of days,” he said.

“I think we’re going to be ahead of the 23rd of September, for the 70 per cent.

“So I don’t think it’s hesitancy … people are absolutely keen to get vaccinated. But if we can make it even more convenient for them by taking the program to them, then that just means we’ll get the numbers up quicker.”

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