More from Australia’s health minister Greg Hunt. He’s nudging state governments to ease internal border restrictions as he declared the removal of the last Covid-19 hotspot in Australia.
He told reporters in Melbourne on Sunday the federal government’s priority remained on helping Australians stranded overseas to return home, but also “ensuring that Australians who are within our own borders are able to reunite with their families as soon as possible”.
Hunt said the chief medical officer Prof Paul Kelly, had removed the last remaining hotspot definition in Australia on Sunday – the hotspot for greater Brisbane.
That step came after Kelly reviewed data from the past 14 days and the handling of the case involving the UK variant in hotel quarantine.
“We are very, very thankful to everybody involved in Queensland,” Hunt said.
Kelly’s decision is based on the federal government’s definition of a hotspot, but states and territories indicated last year they wanted to maintain their right to make their own border decisions, a stance Scott Morrison ultimately accepted.
Hunt said the removal of the hotspot declaration showed Australia was “containing” the virus. That didn’t mean there would be no cases in the time ahead, “but we have very, very clear evidence that the Australian system has been tested and tested again and continues to pass”.
“It’s important to understand that our real challenge, our real threat, is international, not domestic,” Hunt said, noting that 39 of the 40 cases in Australia over the past three days had been in hotel quarantine.
“We are very keen to ensure that our priority is bringing Australians home [from overseas] and also as a result of the removal of the last of the hotspot definitions, ensuring that Australians who are within our own borders are able to reunite with their families as soon as possible.”
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In the United States Joe Biden’s team has flagged a raft of executive orders to be issued by the new president immediately he’s in office, including several relating to the US Covid-19 epidemic.
In a memo to senior staff, incoming chief of staff Ron Klain said Biden would sign orders related to the outbreak aimed at reopening schools and businesses and expanding virus testing. He would mandate mask-wearing on federal property and during interstate travel, and the following day, Friday, will act to provide economic relief to those suffering the economic costs of the pandemic.
On Thursday, Biden unveiled a $1.9tn “rescue plan” and said his administration “will manage the hell out of this operation”. About $400bn of the plan is focused on measures aimed at controlling the virus. Those range from mass vaccination centres to more sophisticated scientific analysis of new strains and squads of local health workers to trace the contacts of infected people.
He pledged to boost supplies of coronavirus vaccine and set up new vaccination sites to meet his goal of 100m shots in 100 days, as part of a broader strategy that also seeks to straighten out snags in testing and ensure minority communities are not left out.
The real payoff, Biden said, will come from uniting the nation in a new effort grounded in science.
He underscored a need for Congress to approve more money and for people to keep following basic precautions, such as wearing masks, avoiding gatherings and frequently washing their hands.
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Australia's health minister defends Australian Open proceeding
Still in Australia, and on the growing controversy that is the Australian Open tennis tournament:
The Australian health minister, Greg Hunt, has backed the decision to proceed with the Australian Open in Melbourne, saying the Victorian state government has “taken appropriate steps” to ensure the safety of tennis tournament.
His comments follow the news that 47 players and 143 travellers have been confined to their rooms after a coach and a flight attendant on the charter flight from Los Angeles and one person on a flight from Abu Dhabi tested positive for Covid-19.
Speaking in Melbourne on Sunday Hunt said the Victorian government was “monitoring and setting the terms and conditions for those that are arriving”.
“They have a pre-screening process. They have a subsequent quarantine process. And this is what we’re doing as a country with all of our international arrivals – so we respect that process. We respect the steps they’re taking and also the way that they’ve responded. We think that that’s appropriate.”
When pressed on whether it was the right thing to host the Australian Open at the current time, Hunt said:
“With regards to the Australian Open, we respect not only the right, but also the processes of particular states to screen, to monitor and to conduct events – whether it’s the Melbourne Test, the Sydney Test, the Brisbane Test and the Adelaide Test, whether it is the current event, which the Victorian government has been planning. And we think that they have taken appropriate steps.”
But Hunt argued the federal government’s priority had been to bring stranded Australians home. Despite the recent reduction in flight arrival caps, and the decision by Emirates to suspend flights to Australia, he pointed to the government’s announcement on Saturday of 20 additional facilitated flights for returning Australians.
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NSW’s chief health officer, Dr Kerry Chant, wants more residents to be tested after six new cases of community transmission were recorded in the state.
The premier, Gladys Berejiklian, said the six people were all close contacts of a person who was diagnosed yesterday.
“Five out of the six are the spouse and children of the one case we had yesterday – and the sixth person is a person who had a very close contact of them in very close proximity,” she said.
Berejiklian said all six people were near Berala – but genomic testing was yet to be done that could confirm whether they were associated with the Berala cluster.
The state conducted 12,700 tests over the past 24 hours.
“That is a decline among testing levels,” Chant said. “It is critical that we get those testing rates up very high.”
She especially called on more testing in Bankstown, Lidcombe, Auburn, Berala and Wentworthville.
One person who tested positive was a healthcare worker who worked in a radiology ward, but Chant said:”The person’s role involves minimal patient contact and they wore a face mask during each shift.”
She said seven close workplace contacts had been tested, and had so far tested negative.
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There were also three cases of Covid-19 recorded in returned travellers in hotel quarantine.
NSW Health also gave more details about the Concord hospital worker who is now in isolation. They worked three shifts in the cardiology and radiology wards while potentially infectious on 12, 13 and 14 January. The person’s role involves minimal contact with patients, and they wore a face mask during each shift.
It also issued new public health alerts – details available here – for:
The Wentworthville Medical and Dental Clinic at 122/128 Station Street, in the dental, physio and imaging waiting room on Friday, 15 January between 11.30am and 1.15pm. Anyone who visited at that time is a close contact who must immediately get tested and self-isolate for 14 days, regardless of the result. People in other areas of the clinic at that time should monitor for symptoms and immediately isolate and get tested if they appear.
Anyone who was at Auburn Centrelink at 5-9 Macquarie Road, Auburn, on Thursday, 14 January between 3pm and 4.15pm should monitor for symptoms and if they appear, immediately get tested and isolate until a negative result is received.
Anyone who travelled on a number of T2 line train services between Warwick Farm and Auburn on Thursday 14 and Friday 15 January must also monitor for symptoms and if they appear, immediately get tested and isolate until a negative result is received.
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Summary
Here the latest key developments at a glance:
- It took just six weeks for the world to report the most recent 500,000 deaths from Covid-19, after death rates began to rise sharply in November 2020 in both Europe and North America, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
- Brazil marked the fifth consecutive day with more than 1,000 fatalities, as it recorded 61,567 new coronavirus cases on Saturday and 1,050 further deaths.
- The Australian state of Victoria recorded another day of zero cases on Saturday. Victoria has recorded its 11th consecutive day of zero locally acquired cases of Covid-19, out of just over 11,000 tests.
- The UK government posted the third highest daily death toll from coronavirus on Saturday, but the number of new infections dropped to its lowest level this year.
- Denmark has registered its first case of infection with a more transmissible coronavirus variant, first found in South Africa, known as B.1.351/501Y.
- France on Saturday implemented a 6pm curfew intended to help stem the spread of infections, after the country’s death toll rose to over 70,000, the seventh highest death toll in the world.
- Slovakia is planning another large-scale testing and quarantine push to combat a serious rise in coronavirus infections, health minister Marek Krajci said on Saturday.
- Italy forecasts its debt to soar to a new post-war record level of 158.5% of gross domestic output (GDP) this year, surpassing the 155.6% goal it set in September.
- Another coronavirus variant is likely to be in the UK already despite the imposition of a travel ban from affected countries. Prof John Edmunds, a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said he would find it unusual if the second of two new variants from Brazil was not already present, although it has not yet been detected.
- India has begun one of the world’s biggest Covid-19 vaccination programmes, the first major developing country to rollout the vaccine and marking the beginning of an effort to immunise more than 1.3 billion people. The first dose was administered to a health worker at All India Institute of Medical Sciences in the capital, New Delhi.
- Suicides rose in Japan in the second wave of the country’s Covid pandemic, particularly among women and children, despite having fallen in the first wave, a survey has found. The July to October suicide rate was up 16% on the same period a year earlier, according to a study by researchers at Hong Kong University and Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology.
That’s all from me, I’m now handing over to my colleague Helen Davidson.
New public health alerts have been issued for a western Sydney venue and additional public transport routes following confirmed cases of Covid-19.
Anyone who attended Centrelink in Auburn on 14 January in the afternoon should get tested immediately and self-isolate until a negative result occurs.
Those who travelled on train services between Warwick Farm and Auburn on 14 and 15 January have also been given the same health directions.
One local case of Covid-19 infection was reported on Saturday in a western Sydney man believed to be linked to the Berala bottle shop cluster.
It comes after days without a locally transmitted infection.
All people who were in the dental, physio and imaging waiting room of the Wentworthville Medical and Dental Clinic between 11.30am and 1.15pm on Friday are now considered close contacts.
“[They] must immediately get tested and self-isolate for 14 days regardless of the result,” NSW Health said on Saturday afternoon.
“Anyone who was in other areas of the clinic at that time should monitor for symptoms and immediately isolate and get tested if they appear.”
Just 14,547 tests in NSW were reported to 8pm on Friday - down on the previous day’s total of 16,070.
NSW has flagged the possibility of loosening restrictions on Greater Sydney next week but one of the conditions is high testing rates.
The testing rates are “not where we would like them to be”, premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters on Friday.
The premier is due to provide the state with an update on Sunday morning.
Meanwhile, Victoria is also watching Sydney closely, as it considers moving parts of the city from “red” to “orange” in its traffic-light permit system.
Travellers from orange zones still need to self-quarantine for 14 days but don’t need to apply for an exemption to enter Victoria.
“There are clearly some local government areas within Greater Sydney that have now gone a number of days of cases without transmission,” Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said in Melbourne.
“I will look very intensively at the epidemiology across Greater Sydney over the next couple of days.”
The UK government said on Saturday it would provide financial aid to airports before the end of March, after the industry called for urgent support as tighter Covid-19 rules for international travellers start on Monday.
Aviation minister Robert Courts said the government would launch a new support programme this month.
“The Airport and Ground Operations Support Scheme will help airports reduce their costs and we will be aiming to provide grants before the end of this financial year,” he announced on social media, adding that more details would follow soon.
From 04:00 GMT on Monday, all travellers to Britain must have a recent negative Covid-19 test and be prepared to quarantine at home for 10 days on arrival.
Britain’s current lockdowns ban most international travel, meaning that airline schedules are currently minimal. But the withdrawal of any quarantine-free travel will be a further blow for the industry.
The latest restrictions were prompted in part by a third wave of the disease that has caused record daily death tolls in Britain, as well as concern about a new coronavirus variant discovered in Brazil.
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Portugal’s finance minister, Joao Leao, has tested positive for Covid-19, his office announced on Saturday.
The day before, he had attended a meeting in Lisbon with high-ranking EU representatives such as commission president Ursula von der Leyen.
The 46-year-old minister has not reported symptoms.
Leao will continue his work at home in self-isolation.
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Slovakia is planning another large-scale testing and quarantine push to combat a serious rise in coronavirus infections, health minister Marek Krajci said on Saturday.
The central European country with a population of 5.5 million has seen record numbers of new cases and hospitalisations since the turn of the year.
There were 3,055 people in hospital on Saturday despite some slowdown amid a partial national lockdown.
“We want to do screening testing of our people, isolate those who spread the virus, their contacts and thus cut the number of infections by up to 50%,” Krajci said during a TV press briefing.
The government will finalise the details on Sunday. If the testing succeeds, Slovakia could ease some epidemic measures in early February, Krajci said.
Its colour-coded, six-level state of emergency is currently at black, the most serious.
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