The prime minister, Scott Morrison, speaks to the media after national cabinet meets to discuss the UK variant of Covid-19. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, speaks to the media after national cabinet meets to discuss the UK variant of Covid-19. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian
In recession news, demand for a permit to fossick for gold in the region in southeastern Queensland has jumped 40% in the past year.
The mayor of Gympie, Glen Hartwig, told the ABC that the leap in interest was due to an increase in the global gold price, which happened as everything else kind of fell apart in 2020.
He said:
With the gold price being $2,500 an ounce, I think there is an interest in mining again in and around Gympie.
If you pull up 30g, it’s a good day away.
Not only are our own residents doing a bit more fossicking but there are the travellers that are coming through trying their luck as well.
But Hartwig had a warning to those thinking of heading out with a fossicking pan to find their fortune.
Some people might find it a little bit therapeutic, others immensely frustrating.
Health authorities have cracked down on a number of wildly inaccurate rapid Covid-19 antibody test kits being pushed on to the Australian market, cancelling approvals, issuing fines and pledging to investigate one supplier marketing an unapproved device.
Relatively little scrutiny was applied to the large volumes of rapid test kits that were rushed on to the Australian market in the pandemic’s early stages.
The kits promised to detect antibodies and return results within 15 minutes, without the need for laboratory testing.
In most cases, manufacturers claimed their products could detect Covid-19 antibodies with more than 90% accuracy.
A review by the Doherty Institute has now analysed 15 of the kits on the market and found the accuracy of many tests fell well short of their claims.
Emergency services in Western Australia have issued an updated emergency warning to residents in an area on the northern side of Lancelin, a coastal town about 140km north of Perth.
The area covered by the emergency warning was extended in the early hours of the morning to include an area west of Brand Highway, where the fire has broken containment lines.
The department of fire and emergency services said:
Forecast very hot, dry and windy weather conditions over the next two days will continue to test containment lines and there is the ongoing potential for the rapid escalation of fire behaviour.
Two residential estates, Ocean Farms Estate and Seaview Park, remain under threat. Residents were advised to evacuate, and are now told they are unable to return home until conditions ease.
Incident controller Sven Anderson told AAP on Thursday that the fire was only one hour away from the estates, and could turn “quite easily” in the right conditions.
There have been no reports of houses lost, but pine plantations, olive groves and some sheds are believed to have been damaged.
Victorian premier Daniel Andrews is providing a coronavirus update early today, at 9.30am. This will allow him to make some comments before heading in to national cabinet.
We haven’t got the daily figures for Victoria yet – I’ll bring them to you as soon as they’re published.
One of the benefits of Australia waiting to roll out the vaccine is that we can learn from countries like the US and UK, where millions of people have already been vaccinated.
The vaccine gives human cells instructions for how to make a protein unique to Covid-19. The protein is harmless, but the body recognises it should not be there and begins to build an immune response. If infected with the real virus, the body will know how to attack.
The Australian government said 10m units of the vaccine would be available from February. Phase three clinical trial results found 95% of people given the vaccine were protected against the virus.
Between 14 and 23 December, monitoring by the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System in the US detected just 21 cases of anaphylaxis – a severe allergic reaction – after administration of 1.8m first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. That’s just 11.1 cases per million doses, and 71% of these reactions occurred within 15 minutes of vaccination. Of the 21 anaphylaxis cases, 17 were in people with a documented history of allergies, seven of whom had a history of anaphylaxis.
An infectious diseases and vaccine expert from the University of Sydney, Prof Robert Booy, said this was useful information for Australia:
We know that those who get the allergic reaction actually already have a history of allergy. And so if you do have a history of what they call anaphylaxis severe reaction, you probably shouldn’t have the vaccine. No one has actually perished as a consequence of that side-effects but it is something worth paying attention to because it could put you in the hospital.
UK variant of Covid found in Queensland worker 'concerning', Australian chief medical officer says
Australia’s chief medical officer Prof Paul Kelly told Radio National the discovery that a person in Queensland had tested positive to the UK variant of the virus was “concerning”.
The woman, who worked as a cleaner in the hotel quarantine system, developed symptoms on Wednesday and got tested immediately. She had been out and about in the community in the days before becoming symptomatic. Kelly said:
We do know that we’ve had cases of the UK variant in our hotel quarantine system and we do know that sometimes with a very complex system that relies on humans mistakes can happen and that apparently is the case here. We don’t know the full details about the cleaner but she has been mobile in the community ... obviously at this point is the absolute key messages are the ones we have had all along. If you’re sick, get tested. If you are asked by a public health official to get tested, do that.
He was asked if he believed flights from the UK to Australia should be stopped. The AHPPC provided national cabinet with advice on that question, which will be discussed at today’s meeting. Kelly said:
Obviously the national cabinet is brought together for a reason ... they are the decision making body, our role at the AHPPC, the medical expert panel that I chair, is to give advise to them, ultimately they’re the decision makers and those decisions will be talked about at the usual press conference after national cabinet and not beforehand.
Kelly was also asked about the vaccine rollout. He said it had not been brought forward out of concern about the UK variant or for any other reason other than it was possible to bring the projected date for the first round of vaccinations from March to February:
It’s been brought forward because we can bring it forward. We’ve always said that as soon as we have that safety tick from the TGA and the logistics is worked out to get the vaccine here it will be rolled out as soon as feasibly after that. We now have a more definite date for that, we have said mid to late February and that’s where we’re heading now.
Labor’s health spokesman Chris Bowen was on Radio National a short time ago. He was asked about the measures to be announced in national cabinet today and the updated vaccine rollout. But first he was asked to comment on the events in US in the past 30 or so hours.
He said it was “an assault on democracy incited by the sitting president”. Australian prime minister Scott Morrison yesterday declined to explicitly criticise Donald Trump as the instigator of the violence, but Bowen said: “I think we should all be explicit in our comments.”
He also criticised some Coalition MPs, and said Morrison should pull the members of his government into line over “propagating conspiracy theories” on social media:
I have also been concerned to see statements on social media by members of the government, namely George Christiansen and Craig Kelly ... While of course we all have a right to our views, we have to be clear and condemn violence.
Bowen said the Labor party supports “sensible measures” around pre- and post-flight testing of travellers from Australia to the UK, but said the Australian government should strengthen quarantine without making it more difficult for Australians stranded overseas to return home:
An Australian passport should mean something, it should mean the right to return home to your country if you need to. Scott Morrison promised to get people home by Christmas – that’s been and gone.
NSW Health adds more sites in Sydney's northern beaches to exposure list
NSW Health last night added a number of new exposure sites in Sydney’s northern beaches, in connection to a new case that will be included in the official figures today.
Anyone who attended the Woolworths supermarket on Old Barrenjoey Road in Avalon on 2 January from 3.45pm to 4pm, 3 January from 12.45pm to 1pm, 4 January from 6.30pm to 6.50pm, 5 January from 4.45pm to 5pm, and 6 January from 12.45pm to 1pm has been urged to get tested immediately and self-isolate until they receive a negative result. They have also been told to continue to monitor for symptoms after receiving a negative test, and get tested again if they arise.
Anyone who attended the Chemist Warehouse in Old Barrenjoey Road in Avalon from 1pm to 1.15pm on 3 January has also been asked to get tested immediately and self-isolate until they receive a negative result. They have also been told to continue to monitor for symptoms after receiving a negative test, and get tested again if they arise.
In Victoria, authorities added a number of new exposure sites yesterday.
Anyone who attended the Merryman Cafe in Hampton on 28 December from 12.50pm to 2.40pm or the Sikh Temple in Keysborough on 1 January from 3pm to 6pm has been told to get tested immediately and self-isolate for 14 days, regardless of the result.
Anyone who attended the Woolworths supermarket in Southland at Cheltenham on 31 December from 6pm to 6.30pm, and the Coles at Hallam on 30 December from 6.15pm to 6.30pm, has been advised to monitor themselves for symptoms and get tested if they develop.
The full list of Victorian exposure sites is here.
In Queensland, anyone who was at the following sites is advised to get tested immediately and quarantine until they receive a negative result.
They are the train from Altandi station to Roma Street on 2 January, arriving at 7am; the train from Central station to Altandi station on 2 January, arriving at 4pm; the Woolworths supermarket in on 3 January from Calamvale North from 11am to 12pm; the Coles in Sunnybank Hills Shoppingtown on 5 January from 7.30am to 8am; and the Nextra news agency at Sunnybank Hills on 5 January from 8am to 8.15am.
The full list of Queensland exposure sites is here.
The Guardian US team is continuing to provide rolling coverage of the fall-out from the incursion into Capitol Hill yesterday. There are growing calls, from both Republicans and Democrats, that article 25 of the constitution be used to oust Donald Trump from office.
National cabinet is expected to move today to require all travellers from the UK to Australia to undertake pre-flight and post-flight testing for Covid-19 in a bid to detect the new highly infectious strain of the virus before it enters Australia. National cabinet is also expected to require pre-flight testing for travellers from all countries planning on heading to Australia, and to make face masks mandatory on all international and domestic flights. They are mandatory on a lot of flights but it’s at the discretion of airlines.
The Australian Health Protection Principal Committee provided updated advice on the UK variant to national cabinet yesterday.
Victorian premier Daniel Andrews told reporters yesterday that he would also push for the daily, or very frequent, Covid-19 testing of everyone who works in the hotel quarantine system through out Australia. Victoria now tests everyone who works in its hotel quarantine system daily; it was one of the reforms recommended in a lengthy review of the system after a quarantine breach last year led to Melbourne’s second wave.
Andrews said daily testing meant that “not if but when the virus does end up getting in the hotel quarantine system, this virus will have a one-day jump on us”.
Queensland chief health officer Dr Jeanette Young said that starting Monday, every person who works in the hotel quarantine system will be tested at the start of every shift, not just every seven days as is now the protocol in Queensland. So Queensland is likely to support Victoria’s motion in national cabinet.
In NSW health authorities are trying to find the source of a new infection in Sydney’s northern beaches. The man was a close contact of a known case and tested positive to the virus after he developed symptoms after completing his 14-day isolation period. NSW chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant said was is possible he caught the infection elsewhere, although he has remained in lockdown:
It does highlight that with that level of community transmission in that northern zone ... that is the risk we want to make sure we tackle, very promptly.
Western Australian authorities have confirmed that a woman in her 80s who is at the centre of personal protective breaches in that state’s hotel quarantine system has also tested positive to the highly contagious UK strain. She arrived in Perth from the UK on Tuesday, went to hotel quarantine, and has since gone to hospital. A paramedic, a nurse and a third person who came into contact with the woman have also been put into hotel quarantine after they failed to use correct PPE when interacting with the woman. Premier Mark McGowan has said there is no risk to the public from the “flabbergasting” breach.
And in non-coronavirus news, residents forced to evacuate their home to flee a bushfire burning out of control north of Perth may not be able to return home for several days, with severe conditions and temperatures of more than 40C expected today. An emergency warning remains in place.
I’ll bring you the new NSW and Victorian exposure sites shortly but for now, let’s crack on. If I miss something you can contact me on Twitter @callapilla or email me at calla.wahlquist@theguardian.com.
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