New Zealand has reported two new cases of community transmitted coronavirus.
The two people are close contacts of a port worker who tested positive for COVID-19 at the weekend. The ship that is now anchored off the Sunshine Coast.
Follow today’s events as they unfold.
Live updates
By Kelsie Iorio
What’s the WA sitch?
Can’t find a story explaining the huge number of WA cases.
-What happened in WA
There’s a little more on this story here — The WA Premier conceded he knew two Australians were allowed to disembark the ship and went home to quarantine before the COVID-19 outbreak was detected on board.
WA’s health department has confirmed one new case today — that case was made public yesterday, but will show up in today’s numbers. The new cases is a Filipino man in his 40s onboard a bulk carrier called the Key Integrity (a different one to the two stories above).
By Kelsie Iorio
Brazil’s health minister comes down with suspected COVID-19 case
Brazilian Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello has fallen ill with a suspected case of COVID-19, the ministry’s press office says.
President Jair Bolsonaro said at a public event on Monday that he had a “small indisposition and went to the hospital“, but the ministry has since said that Pasuello has been discharged.
Brazil is battling the world’s third-worst coronavirus outbreak, with more than 5.2 million cases and 154,000 deaths.
Reporting by Reuters
By Kelsie Iorio
Back to school jitters
Tomorrow is my last day of online learning. Next Monday, after nearly 6 months straight of learning from home, I will be returning to school with my friends and teachers. I am so excited to go back, but I’m also quite apprehensive. I don’t know how I am going to be able to handle proper lessons and structure, as well as crowds of students, after being home by myself for so long. Do you have any advice for me?
-Nervous student
Hi Nervous student, it’s been a little while since I chucked on the old school uniform so take this with a grain of salt. Nor am I an expert on… anything. But here’s my advice:
- This whole situation is super weird. You’re allowed to have a laugh about it
- If you miss a few points here and there in lessons, don’t beat yourself up. You will catch up when you can
- If you feel overwhelmed, have a big drink of water, close your eyes and zone out for a minute — no one is looking at you, nor will they care what you’re doing
- Even if everyone looks like they have it together, I guarantee they are feeling the exact same as you. Let the little things slide and support your friends and classmates, and that support will come back to you too
Have a good first day back and use lots of hand sanitiser!!!
By Kelsie Iorio
Victorian security guard speaks out about coronavirus hotel quarantine inquiry
A private security guard who gave evidence anonymously at Victoria’s hotel quarantine inquiry has spoken publicly for the first time.
Craig Arundel says guards on the ground have been unfairly blamed for the failed program.
“The good thing about the inquiry is that the public are now starting to see the work involved in running a quarantine hotel,” he said.
By Kelsie Iorio
Where are my keen fisherpeople at
Some good news from the DHHS if you enjoy fishing — we’ve just received this response to a question about whether fishing is allowed:
“You can go fishing in metropolitan Melbourne. This activity is required to be undertaken within 25km of your home. You must maintain physical distance and group limits apply.
“You can meet in a group of up to ten people from a maximum of two households outdoors in a public place to socialise or exercise.
“You cannot travel into regional Victoria for exercise or recreation, including fishing.”
By Kelsie Iorio
A milestone hangs in the balance
109 active cases today so I’m hoping that when we crack the ton, maybe as early as tomorrow, the fabulous blog team will have a gif ready to celebrate this milestone
-Loveyerworkabc
Double-digit active cases in Vic are getting closer and closer… Don’t let those guards down though.
And remember, people who have tested positive have to be cleared by health authorities to be classified as ‘recovered’ — it depends on more than just feeling better one day!
(Also just quietly does anyone know where to watch the new season of DCC: Making the Team [where this ^ GIF is from] in Australia?! I’m too obsessed)
By Kelsie Iorio
SA Premier asks NZ Prime Minister to relax border restrictions
Premier of South Australia Steven Marshall has written to New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden requesting that South Australians be allowed to travel directly to New Zealand without needing to quarantine on their arrival.
SA yesterday lifted quarantine requirements for incoming NZ travellers — a move that’s been welcomed by the tourism industry.
“We don’t pose any threat to New Zealand whatsoever, so I’ve put that in writing to PM Jacinda Ardern, asking her to reciprocate,” Mr Marshall said.
By Kelsie Iorio
Experts on Victoria’s ‘reinfection’ case
Experts are looking pretty closely at this to see if they can work out exactly what’s going on to determine whether this person has been infected twice, or whether they’re still just shedding some old virus.
Some of Australia’s leading experts have spoken to the Australian Science Media Centre about this today — here’s what they make of it so far:
“We know that people can shed the SARS-CoV-2 virus for a prolonged period after an infection, sometimes for over 100 days. This may yet be the case here; however, if they have a new illness now with a positive COVID-19 swab — even if the new illness eventually turns out to be due to another infection e.g. flu or another virus — it would still be prudent from a public health viewpoint to get them to self-isolate till that is determined. If, however, this turns out to be true reinfection with COVID-19, this will be an important case globally, especially to see if the second illness is milder than the first. Hopefully, they will get better soon.”
– Associate Professor Sanjaya Senanayake, specialist in Infectious Diseases and Associate Professor of Medicine at ANU
“If this proves to be Australia’s first case of reinfection, it will fit with a pattern seen elsewhere in the world. Other reinfection cases have turned up in Hong Kong and the United States, to name two examples. This tells us we still have much to learn about this virus and our bodies’ immune response to it. In particular, as the virus continues to evolve and mutate, infection with one of its strains may not protect us from another strain. These revelations of reinfections compose a big challenge for vaccine efforts as many vaccines were developed to be active against strains identified early in the progression of the pandemic. As more infections occur we will be in a race for vaccines to stay apace with the evolutionary curve of this virus.”
– Professor Sarah Palmer, Co-Director of the Centre for Virus Research at The Westmead Institute for Medical Research and Professor at the University of Sydney’s Faculty of Medicine
“Whilst reinfection is listed as a rare event, it is important to note we do not truly know the frequency of reinfection, as to definitively state that this was a separate viral infection event is not easy. Ideally, to document a case of reinfection, we require clear diagnostics in the first case (detection of the virus by PCR and also serology as a backup). The full viral sequence is also helpful to demonstrate the patient was infected with that circulating strain at that point in time.
– Dr Stuart Turville, Associate Professor in the Immunovirology and Pathogenesis Program at the Kirby Institute, UNSW
Good bye
I’m off everyone.
Thanks for your company today.
Kelsie Iorio will guide you through the rest of the afternoon.
By Kelsie Iorio
How to maintain friendships when life gets tough
In news you may find shocking, it’s been a bit of a tricky year. And that can take its toll on friendships — even with your absolute best friends.
All-consuming jobs. Sleepless nights with tiny children. Ageing parents. Recessions. Love. Marriage. Divorce. Clashing values. Politics. Health problems. COVID-19. It’s all going on right now and it’s a bit exhausting.
Whether you’re in lockdown or not, if you’re feeling a bit disconnected from your mates, author and journo Kate Leaver has written this article for ABC Life with some tips to maintain those relationships even in hard times. If nothing else, it’s a break from Question Time.
Can I travel into Regional Victoria if I live in the outskirts of Metro Melbourne?
Live on outskirts of Melb. If 25km drive puts me into Regional zone – can I keep going?
-Outskirts
Hi, Outskirts.
No, you cannot. Unless you have a permitted reason.
The DHHS website says that you can now travel up to 25 km from your home or permitted workplace within metropolitan Melbourne. This replaces the 5km rule.
Travel to regional Victoria is still only allowed for permitted purposes even if this is within 25km.
This means you cannot travel into regional Victoria for exercise or recreation.
Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume.
It’s Question Time in the House of Representatives
If anyone says anything pertinent to the coronavirus pandemic, we’ll bring it to you here.
Alternatively, you can watch using the video stream at the top of this page.
By Kelsie Iorio
Must be going for a world record
How many presser’s has Dan done in a row now?
-Presser Fan
The light humored question towards the end of Dan’s presser today regarding “What number do we have to get to before these press conferences stop every day?”Made me wonder…..how many consecutive press conferences are we up to?
-DailyDan
Daniel Andrews did his 100th straight press conference on October 10, so if my calculations are correct, we’re up to… 111.
What time will Dan Andrews presser be in three days?
-Thanks
Sadly I didn’t bring my magic future-seeing powers to work today. Sorry.
Details on the suspected re-infected person
Not sure you’ll be able to answer this, but hopefully you can pass it on if not. Do we know whether the suspected reinfection case in Vic is actually unwell or not? I seem to recall that a previous reported reinfection overseas (in China or Hong Kong maybe?) showed signs of having contracted the virus a second time but didn’t actually get the COVID-19 disease, which was actually positive news for vaccines. If it is a fairly weak positive like I think the Premier said this morning, might that be the same in this case?
-Science Question
Hi, Science Question.
Not a huge amount of detail was offered about this person in the press conference.
This is what the Premier, Daniel Andrews said.
“All the experts have sat around and looked at all the testing and the … biology that sits behind that and they cannot determine whether it
is shedding or fresh.“So, through an abundance of caution, the assumption is that he has caught it for a second time.
“If that is the case, it’s better to be cautious. If that is the case then that will be one of only a handful of those sorts of reinfection cases we have seen anywhere in the world.
“Despite some very, very clever people who do this for a living, going through all the different elements of this, they cannot be satisfied to a pretty high standard that this is not a new positive case. Even as unlikely as it is that you can get it twice, at least that is the advice we have.”
The Premier was asked whether more testing would be done on this person.
“I would assume so,” he said.
“I think there has been only a couple of tests, this person testing positive, they were retested, I’m not sure how many times but there were multiple tests.”
By Kelsie Iorio
Victoria’s testing overnight
I completely missed the beginning of the press conference, how many tests were carried out?
-Loving the blog
Hey there Loving the blog, Daniel Andrews was pretty happy with testing numbers in Victoria overnight — there were 17,409 tests carried out in the last reporting period.
That takes the total number of tests in Victoria to 2,984,494 since the start of the year.
The Premier gave a shout-out to everyone who’s been getting tested in his press conference this morning.
“That’s really very, very important, and if there’s one message today and every day that people take away from these briefings, please get tested as soon as you register any symptoms,” he said.
“That way we can stop the spread of this virus. That’s good for you, for your family and every family.
“That’s a really impressive number at 17,409, and we’re deeply grateful to every one of those people who have gone and got tested.”
Following up from an earlier question about the Sole Trader grant
Hi Simon and bloggers, an update about the Sole Trader Grant in Melb. from my earlier question. I rang the Business Vic helpline and was told there is a backlog of applications and ‘watch out for an email sometime’. So the ‘five business days’ they advise is no where near correct. They were not even able to look up my application with my reference number. This is general advice.
-Sole Trader Deb
Hi, Sole Trader Deb,
That’s some good information.
300,000 excess deaths in America, according to CDC report
A new government report shows that since the coronavirus pandemic began, the US has seen 300,000 more deaths than it usually would.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been tracking how many deaths have been reported and comparing them with counts seen in other years.
Usually, between the beginning of February and the end of September, about 1.9 million deaths are reported. This year, it’s closer to 2.2 million — a 14.5 per cent increase.
The CDC says the coronavirus was involved in about two-thirds of the excess deaths.
CDC officials say it’s likely the virus was a factor in many other deaths too. For example, someone with heart attack symptoms may have hesitated to go to a hospital that was busy with coronavirus patients.
The largest segment of the excess deaths, about 95,000, were in elderly people ages 75 to 84. That was 21.5 per cent more than in a normal year.
The biggest relative increase, 26.5 per cent, was in people ages 25 to 44. Deaths in people younger than 25 actually dropped slightly.
Deaths were up for different racial and ethnic groups, but the largest increase, 54 per cent, was among Hispanic Americans.
Reporting by AP
By Kelsie Iorio
National Cabinet rescheduled
When is the national cabinet meeting? Haven’t heard anything about a date….
-Hello
Hello, Hello.
PM Scott Morrison said last week that the next National Cabinet meeting has been rescheduled for this Friday, October 23.
ICYMI: the meeting got called off last week because Mr Morrison’s plane was having some ‘technical problems.’
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