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Australia Covid updates live: NSW records 1,035 cases, Melbourne protesters arrested; Victoria records 628 cases and three deaths Australia Covid updates live: NSW records 1,035 cases, Melbourne protesters arrested; Victoria records 628 cases and three deaths
(32 minutes later)
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Looks like we will be getting the Victorian Covid-19 update at 11.45am AEST. The Australia Capital Territory has recorded 17 new local Covid-19 cases, only one was in quarantine for their entire infectious period.
NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian says it’s an “absolute fact” that case numbers will rise when the state opens up at 70% vaccination, leading to increased pressure on the hospital and ICU system. Swarms of heavily armoured riot police are still following protesters through the Melbourne CBD, and seem to be picking up pace.
She urges people to get vaccinated. Melbourne has been going for a real “end of days” feel this morning.
Queensland could move to home quarantine for fully vaccinated people, but it will keep building a mass quarantine facility near Toowoomba, reports AAP’s Marty Silk. Should be hearing from Victorian health officials any minute now.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has admitted that mandatory hotel quarantine is “tough” after the state’s human rights commissioner, Scott McDougall, raised concerns about a “blanket approach” to people seeking exemptions to quarantine at home. Here is an overhead view of police following protesters through Carlton Gardens in the Melbourne CBD.
She suggested that Queensland could allow more people to quarantine at home once vaccination coverage is high enough in the state. New Zealand has reported 23 new cases of coronavirus in the community, with all but one linked to existing cases in the current outbreak. It is a slight jump in cases, after the country reported 14 on Tuesday.
Palaszczuk said the quarantine facility being built at Wellcamp, near Toowoomba, would still be required for international travellers, particularly students from overseas. There are now 1,108 cases in the outbreak. Health officials are working on establishing a link to the remaining case today. Of those who have been linked, 11 of them are household contacts, including six within one household, five are known contacts and one is a likely known contact. Thirteen people are in hospital and two of those are in intensive care. From today, Auckland is in a level 3 lockdown, which allows people to slightly extend their bubble to isolated people and to order takeaways. Local media reported that people had queued outside fast-food restaurants including McDonald’s and KFC, since midnight, when the lockdown settings changed.
The president of the NSW branch of the Australian Medical, Dr Danielle McMullen, said planning for outdoor sporting events should not take precedence over the reopening of elective surgery. The city has reached a new milestone for vaccination, with 80% of the eligible population – 12 years and older – now vaccinated with at least one dose. For the nation, that figure is 72%, with just more than 38% of the eligible population fully vaccinated. On Wednesday, the Covid-19 response minister, Chris Hipkins, again invited every New Zealander to get vaccinated, adding that a 90% vaccination rate would give the country one of the highest rates in the world.
Bureau of Health Information figures from the last quarter (April to June) show that the median wait time for non-urgent surgery was 256 days – 10 days longer than the pre-Covid period – April to June 2019. Hipkins also announced the next release of around 3000 managed isolation and quarantine rooms will be on September 28th. New Zealanders have struggled to navigate the MIQ system, which has left tens of thousands of people stranded overseas.
There were 85,296 people on the waiting list at the end of the quarter – of those, 2,108 had waited longer than the clinically recommended timeframe. Almost all (83,271 of those people on the waiting list) were in the semi-urgent and non-urgent category. Vibe.
Here are the details of that five Covid-19 deaths from NSW Health: Jumping back to the Melbourne protests now, and there have been more arrests.
Unfortunately, the gradient isn’t as forgiving on the Victorian graph.
We are really starting to see that rolling case number average heading down on the NSW graph, by the wonderful Josh Nicholas.
There seems to be a small group of protesters walking through the streets of Melbourne. It looks to be around 100 people potentially, significantly smaller than yesterday.
Berejiklian:
The NSW premier is speaking now and has confirmed the state has recorded 1,035 local Covid-19 cases.
Sadly five people infected with Covid-19 have also died.
We should be hearing from the premier at today’s NSW press conference by the way.
We are just standing by now for the NSW daily press conference where we will learn the daily case numbers.
It looks the main protest group is starting to form, and according to reports from the Melbourne CBD are heading towards the police line.