Australia news LIVE Victoria records 176 new local COVID-19 cases as states and territories edge closer to vaccination targets
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Reddam House private school, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, has closed its Woollahra campus today after a positive COVID-19 case.
“We wish to advise that Reddam Woollahra campus will be closed today, Thursday 2nd of September, and all lessons will be conducted online for all students,†the school told parents and carers this morning.
“The school has been advised that a Year 4 student who has recently been attending the campus for lessons has tested positive for COVID-19.
“All our other Reddam campuses including other ELS [early learning school] centres and Bondi will remain open. There is no known connection to these campuses.
“The school is seeking information from NSW Health and we will keep you updated on this matter as further developments occur.â€
The Reddam House Woollahra campus includes the early learning, primary and middle schools.1
The Queensland mother of a three-year-old boy stuck in NSW with his grandparents due to border closures says he asks her on the phone in tears “to come and get himâ€.
Dominique Facer’s three-year-old son Memphis has been living with his grandparents, near Griffith, for eight weeks after visiting in July.
The Queensland government on July 22 announced it had declared all of NSW a hotspot and would shut the border from 1am on July 23.
“He needs to come home to his mum and dad,†Ms Facer told radio station 2GB this morning.
“Thankfully, his grandparents and his little village have been keeping him amused and just trying to keep him in good spirits.
“Often he rings and he wants to come home and he asks me to come and get him. It’s so hard to tell my son ‘I can’t come and get you, darling, I’m not allowed’. Basically, I’ve just got to wait until we find what happens with these border closures and if an exemption gets accepted.â€
She claims Queensland Health told her “it’s not of a compassionate groundâ€.
Memphis’ grandmother Alex told 2GB they would drive him to the border town of Goondiwindi if he was allowed to isolate at home rather than ending up in hotel quarantine.
“He goes straight over to his parents, and she takes him straight back home and they isolate there for 14 days,†the grandmother said. “Even if it’s three weeks, a month, she’ll do whatever.â€
She said they can’t tell a three-year-old “he’s not allowed†to go home because “then it might be that he thinks his parents don’t want himâ€.
“They want him home. But the thing is, when they’re closing these borders, give people more time to get there,†she said.
The boy’s grandfather said they live “in the middle of nowhere†in the bush and Memphis hadn’t been near anyone else.
Ms Facer, from her home in Howard near Hervey Bay, told Nine’s Today show she would be willing to have police checking on her in isolation every day.
“I’m not going to move, I’ll do anything and everything I possibly can just to get my son home, it’s cruel.â€
Victoria’s daily coronavirus numbers are in.
The state has recorded 176 new, locally acquired cases of COVID-19 and zero in hotel quarantine. This is Victoria’s highest daily total this year.
The Department of Health says 83 cases are linked to known outbreaks. This means there are, at this stage, 93 mystery cases.
Authorities have not yet said how many people were in isolation for their entire infectious period.
There are now 1029 active cases of coronavirus across the state.
Today’s numbers are off the back of yesterday’s 48,372 coronavirus tests.
As you might recall from earlier this week, Australian retail giant Harvey Norman has announced it will return $6 million in funds it received as part of last year’s JobKeeper scheme after recording record profits.
The move has reignited debate over the federal government’s $70 billion emergency scheme. Labor has been calling for greater transparency over how the funds were used amid concerns taxpayer money was used to increase private revenue during a pandemic.
Harvey Norman has bowed to pressure and paid back JobKeeper funds.Credit:Scott Barbour
Here’s what Treasurer Josh Frydenberg had to say about the matter on the Today show earlier this morning:
I would welcome companies who are in a position to pay it back.
If you’re putting to me we should change the law retrospectively on people who applied and received that support in the middle of an economic crisis, I would say no to that.
If the Labor Party are proposing to actually go back and get the money from small businesses from around the country who received JobKeeper, then we’ll oppose that.
Ninety-eight per cent of the recipients of JobKeeper were small business. You go and talk to any small business that received JobKeeper and they will tell you it was a lifeline.
Without it, we would have lost more than 700,000 jobs. JobKeeper not only stemmed the tide of those job losses but actually supported the recovery. That’s critical to understand.
As mentioned earlier, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has questioned the national reopening plan and says more research is needed on how COVID-19 affects children.
In Australia, children under the age of 12 are not yet included in the national vaccine rollout. However, the country’s chief vaccination body has approved Pfizer for those aged 12 and up.
Federal Treasurer Josh Frydneberg says Queensland, as with every state and territory, needs to come to terms with living with COVID-19. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Ms Palaszczuk tapped into community concerns around COVID-19 and children during question time yesterday (remember that the state’s recent outbreak centred around several Brisbane schools). The Premier suggested she will “stand firm†and “strong†on borders and lockdowns until more is known about young people and the virus.
The Royal Australasian College of Physicians says, to the best of our knowledge, COVID-19 â€" even the Delta variant â€" remains a mild illness for children.
Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is doing the media rounds this morning, and suggested Ms Palaszczuk is playing political games.
Here’s what he had to say on Seven’s Sunrise earlier:
It’s a desperate denial of the reality and is not based on the medical advice.
The medical advice is that the illnesses in kids is much less severe than what we see in adults. The medical advice is what the [national reopening] plan was based on.
The people of Queensland are recognising they have to live with COVID. It’s a reality that is now being accepted in Victoria with yesterday’s announcement that they can’t eliminate it. No country has eliminated it.
That why it’s so important we stick to the plan and open up accordingly.
Under the reopening plan, agreed to by national cabinet, lockdowns will become less widespread after more than 70 per cent of Australians are fully vaccinated.
In case you missed it, Victorian health authorities identified nearly 40 new COVID-19 exposure sites after 7pm last night.
They included several tier-1 or close contact exposure sites, including:
Anyone who attended those sites during the specified timeframes has to immediately get tested for COVID-19 and quarantine for 14 days, regardless of whether they receive a negative test result.
The remainder of last night’s fresh exposure sites were tier-2 or casual contact sites. Several supermarkets, an apartment complex in Hawthorn, Sunshine Fruit Market and an Australia Post in Melbourne’s inner north are affected.
The full list of Victorian exposure sites can be found here.
A Sydney COVID-19 patient has been treated in hospital for an overdose of the drug ivermectin and other underground “cures†ordered online.
The person is now recovering at home after presenting to Westmead Hospital’s emergency department with vomiting and diarrhoea caused by the drug, according to the Western Sydney Local Health district.
“Thankfully they didn’t develop severe toxicity, but it didn’t help their COVID either,†Westmead Hospital toxicologist Associate Professor Naren Gunja said.
“There’s no evidence to support the use of ivermectin to treat COVID-19. Don’t look for magic cures online, and don’t rely on what’s being peddled on the internet, because none of them work.â€
Authorities have reported a tenfold increase in Australians importing the drug, which is approved as a treatment for roundworm infections, scabies and inflammatory rosacea.
The unproven treatment for COVID-19 has often been touted as a cure by anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists in online forums.
Victoria will remain in some form of lockdown until rates of full vaccination reach 70 per cent after the state recorded 120 fresh cases on Wednesday, with warnings that cases could peak at 2000 a day next month.
The state government announced that a slight easing of rules could happen by September 23, including allowing Victorians to travel 10 kilometres from their homes for exercise and essential shopping, exercise outdoors for up to three hours per day, and have personal training sessions with one other person.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews on Wednesday. Credit:Getty
The only restriction to ease sooner will be the reopening of children’s playgrounds on Friday, dashing hopes that Melbourne’s curfew and the statewide five-kilometre travel restriction would be scrapped this week.
Business groups derided what they called the lack of ambition in plans to carefully reopen, while experts were divided about whether some further modest easing was justified due to the strain of the state’s sixth lockdown on Victorians.
More on this story here.
The number of people in NSW admitted to hospital with COVID-19 has jumped 42 per cent in one week, with infected patients spread across 35 of the state’s hospitals and more than 1400 healthcare workers now in isolation.
Swelling case numbers have forced the private hospital network to activate surge plans and deploy their nurses to public hospital intensive care wards.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian at Wednesday’s COVID-19 update.Credit:Kate Geraghty
Sydney Adventist Hospital in Wahroonga confirmed it is now “prepared to accept†COVID-19 patients and St Vincent’s Private Hospital in Darlinghurst will open a dedicated “amber†ward for close contacts of cases who require other medical treatment.
There are 150 infected patients in intensive care wards, taking up almost 18 per cent of the state’s ICU beds.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Wednesday warned that the state’s worst hospitalisation rate would be in October, but it would not halt the reopening of NSW when the vaccination rate hit 70 per cent.
More on NSW’s hospital system and reopening plans here.
A furious political row has deepened divisions over the national plan to ease lockdowns after federal ministers slammed a “scaremongering†claim from Queensland about the danger to children from rising coronavirus cases.
Angry at new objections to the agreed plan, the federal government accused Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk of misleading Australians over the risks to children if and when restrictions are eased and case numbers might increase.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has tapped into community anxiety on the fact children under 12 can’t yet be vaccinated against COVID-19.Credit:Matt Dennien
Health experts have warned against panic about children being exposed to the virus when steady increase in vaccinations among older Australians results in a greater proportion of cases among those under 12, given there is no approved vaccine for this age group.
More on this story here.
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