Health News at Your Fingertips

That is where we will leave the live blog for tonight. We will be back with you tomorrow morning, but until then, here’s what made the news today:

• NSW reached its 70% double-dose target for the over-16 population, ahead of lockdown ending on Monday.
• The newly minted NSW premier, Dominic Perrottet, says there is “an opportunity for some changes” to the state’s roadmap out of lockdown, but bringing forward freedoms for the unvaccinated is not one of them.
• Covid-19 numbers continue to decline in NSW, with 594 cases recorded, as well as 10 deaths.
• The Victorian government will ease border restrictions with NSW and the ACT. The state reported 11 deaths, the most of its third wave of Covid-19, and 1,420 new cases.
• Australians with compromised immune systems may receive Covid-19 booster shots this year, before third jabs are rolled out more widely in 2022.
• Child cancer patients and their carers have been forced into isolation after a Covid-19 outbreak at a Melbourne hospital cancer ward, while four of the city’s schools have been shut after Covid-positive students sat an annual test.
• Workers in regional NSW are unsure if they can attend work when the state reopens on Monday following mixed vaccination messaging from the government.
• A woman in her 70s has died from Covid-19 in the ACT, bringing the territory’s death toll from the current outbreak to six, with 28 new cases reported.
• The ACT’s health minister has hit out at the federal government for not mandating Covid-19 vaccines for disability support workers.
• All primary close contacts of a coronavirus-infected teenager who broke quarantine in northern Tasmania have returned initial negative tests.
• Queensland may have seen off another outbreak of the Delta variant of Covid-19, with zero community cases recorded, but the premier is unable to provide a clear timeframe for reopening.
• South Australia is working on pathways to allow travellers from Victoria and NSW to come into the state heading into Christmas, but conditions will apply.
• The federal government is under pressure to revisit health funding for states and territories amid fears about how Australia’s hospitals will cope with a Covid-19 surge.
• There have been 29.3m vaccines administered nationally, up 350,856 in the 24 hours before Wednesday.

Until tomorrow, stay safe.

Just a bit more on the exposure site at the cancer ward at the Royal Children’s hospital in Melbourne. AAP says the exposure period was over four days, from 1 to 4 October.

No patients have tested positive as yet and the ward has been classified as a tier one exposure site and all contacts required to isolate for 14 days.

Affected hospital patients and their parents or carers have been placed into single rooms within the hospital to quarantine.

Dozens of Victorian prisoners and staff are battling Covid-19 as the state’s worsening outbreak leaks into jails, AAP reports.

Corrections Victoria on Tuesday confirmed 39 prisoners and 15 staff are among the more than 14,000 active cases in the state.

Of the infected prisoners, 19 are located at the Melbourne Assessment Prison, 11 are at the Metropolitan Remand Centre, five are at the Ravenhall Correctional Centre, three are at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre and one is at Port Phillip Prison.

The five Covid-positive prisoners at Ravenhall were in the general prison population but have since been moved into isolation units.

Prisoner movement at Ravenhall has been restricted since 25 September and transfers remain suspended.

More than 900 prisoners have been tested at the prison. A second round of surveillance testing began on Monday, with 749 prisoners swabbed so far.

There are also cases among staff at the Metropolitan Remand Centre (five), Ravenhall Correctional Centre (five), Port Phillip Prison (two), Dame Phyllis Frost Centre (one), Maribyrnong Community Residential Facility (one) and Barwon Prison (one).

“No staff members have been infected with Covid-19 via contact with prisoners,” Corrections Victoria said.

“With the exception of some of the cases at Ravenhall, no prisoners have contracted Covid-19 from prison staff.

“All of the other 34 cases have been contained to quarantine and isolation units across the prison system since their arrival and do not pose a threat to the general prison population or staff.”

Prisoner movement at the Dame Phyllis and Port Phillip prisons have also been restricted, while all in-person visits to Victorian jails have been suspended for some time.

The NSW premier, Dominic Perrottet has announced via his Facebook page that the state has officially reached 70% of the over-16 population being double-dose vaccinated:

Bam. We’ve hit 70% of over-16s double vaccinated in NSW.

This is great news and big step closer to a full reopening and a proper summer.

As I covered earlier, he mentioned the target would be reached at his press conference earlier, but everyone is excited about the Facebook post, so I am now mentioning it to you.

The NSW crisis cabinet is meeting with some changes to the roadmap to be decided, but Perrottet said earlier that the plan was still to end lockdown on Monday.

The Victorian health department is concerned there could be cases at the following locations due to viral fragment wastewater detections:

• Portland – unexpected wastewater detection for period 30 September-4 October.
• Cobram – unexpected wastewater detection for period 30 September-4 October.
• Apollo Bay – unexpected wastewater detection for period 29 September-4 October.
• Bairnsdale – unexpected wastewater detection in areas that include part of Bairnsdale, East Bairnsdale, Eastwood, Hillside, Lucknow, Nicholson, Wy Yung with period of interest 29 September-4 October.
• Aireys Inlet – repeated unexpected wastewater detection for period 16 September-4 October.
• Mildura area – repeated unexpected wastewater detections with the period of interest from 26 September.
• Ballarat – repeated unexpected detections in areas that include part of Delacombe and Sebastopol from 28 September.
• Falls Creek Alpine Resort – unexpected detection with period of interest 28-29 September.

The Australian Human Rights Commission says the closure of the Manus Island immigration detention centre does not remove Australia’s obligations under the refugee convention for the more than 100 people remaining on Manus Island, even if their claims are processed by another country.

Those who refuse to go to Nauru by the end of the year could have their protection claims processed by Papua New Guinea, but the AHRC said Australia’s obligations under the refugee convention remain, and third-party processing could see Australia in breach of its human rights obligations.

In particular, the commission has concerns about:

• The potential for breaches of Australia’s non-refoulement obligations.
• The potential that asylum seekers may be subjected to arbitrary detention.
• Living conditions for asylum seekers on PNG.
• The lack of robust independent monitoring mechanisms.
• The health and safety of people in detention on PNG.

The commission has urged that all people who arrive in Australia and make claims for asylum should have those claims assessed here. Australia has an established system for determining refugee status and complementary protection claims. This system should be followed in a way that respects the inherent dignity and humanity of people who come seeking asylum, and that provides durable solutions to those found to be owed protection.

Here’s a quick rundown of the ACT budget from AAP:

• Deficit of $951.5m for 2021-22, the largest in the territory’s history
• Deficits to continue for next three years
• Forecast deficit of $564m in 2022-23, $530m in 2023-24 and $474m in 2024-25
• Net debt forecast at $5.72bn in 2021-22
• Forecast revenue of $6.59bn in 2021-22
• Rates revenue of $660m for 2021-22

Spending:

• Health: $2.1bn
• Education: $1.5bn
• Police and emergency services: $408m
• Justice: $306m
• Transport: $286m
• Housing: $256m
• Environment and climate change: $242m
• $5bn in infrastructure spending over five years
• $90m for Covid-19 health response

SA Health authorities continue to delve into the case of a woman from Mt Gambier who tested positive for the virus this week after spending time in Victoria, AAP reports.

The case has prompted tough new restrictions for Mt Gambier and two other council areas in South Australia’s south-east.

They include stricter density rules, a limit of two visitors to any home, and bans on private functions and organised sporting activities.

The rules will stay in place for at least seven days.

After testing positive, the woman, in her 40s, was transferred to hotel quarantine in Adelaide along with her four children.

On Wednesday, police reported a targeted arson attack on a car at a home in Mt Gambier, believed to be where the woman lived.

The SA premier, Steven Marshall, condemned the attack.

“This is a very disturbing story. Of course, we condemn this action,” he said. “This a very nasty development down in Mt Gambier.”

SA Health reported no new virus cases on Wednesday after more than 6,100 tests over the past 24 hours including a large number in the Mt Gambier region.

The state is currently dealing with three active infections, all in hotel quarantine.

South Australia is working on “pathways” to allow travellers from Victoria and NSW to come into the state heading into Christmas, but conditions will apply, the premier, Steven Marshall, says.

AAP reports he says SA will be in a position to release its plans in the coming weeks, but it’s likely changes to border arrangements will allow for restricted travel heading into the festive season.

At present, hard closures remain with both states, allowing only essential travellers and people with exemptions to cross the border.

Travellers are likely to be required to be double vaccinated and return negative tests and will face being quarantined, along with any close contacts, if they come down with Covid-19.

“I think people can have some confidence that as we get closer to Christmas that there will be pathways for people to come back,” Marshall told reporters on Wednesday.

At the same time the premier has reiterated earlier comments that SA was not planning any sort of “miraculous freedom day” when all local restrictions and border rules are scrapped.

He says density rules and attendance caps, along with other measures, will remain in place for the foreseeable future and rules around testing and quarantining will stay.

He has also revealed a decision, for the time being, for SA to stick with a 14-day home quarantine for Australians returning from overseas, despite some jurisdictions planning to cut that to seven days.

“We need to be prudent. We’ve got a lot to lose,” Marshall says.

“But the model shows us that at 80% double vaccinated, we’re going to very seriously reduce the transmission potential.”

The Kookaburra ward of the Royal Children’s hospital in Melbourne has been named as a tier one exposure site, after a parent who visited the hospital a few days ago later tested positive.

The hospital CEO, Bernadette McDonald, says contact tracing is still under way, but stresses this is something the hospital is dealing with every day.

We’ve got very clear screening processes in place but sometimes mum and dad have been in, and then become Covid positive a few days later, and when we find out we take all our precautions. We’re very, very happy and glad that we’ve got lots and lots of single rooms so we can isolate people quite safely when we do get a positive Covid result.

This is something that our teams are working with every day, have been for you know months now, and continue to work with, and they are great capable people and they manage their situations extremely well.

McDonald says the hospital is currently dealing – separately to this outbreak – with eight Covid-positive children at the hospital, and four who are doing hospital in the home.

She says Covid is “not as extreme” in children as in adults, but all patients are being closely monitored.

She doesn’t state when the exposure dates were, and I cannot yet see them on the Department of Health page, but I will try to find out.

AAP has a bit more on the new deputy premier of NSW.

Paul Toole has been sworn in, pledging to restore “business as usual” in the state’s regions after being emphatically elected as the new Nationals leader.

Toole, the MP for Bathurst, regional transport minister and outgoing deputy Nationals leader, defeated Melinda Pavey 15-3 in a leadership ballot on Wednesday at NSW Parliament House.

He was sworn in as deputy premier on Wednesday afternoon.

“I want to make sure we get back to work and it’s business as usual because the people of this state have been doing it tough now for a number of years,” Toole told reporters, referencing the Covid-19 pandemic but also drought, bushfires and floods.

“What’s important here is that we actually get on with the job.”

Bronnie Taylor, an upper house MP and current minister for mental health, will serve as the new Nationals deputy leader.

Toole said Taylor was “talented, enthusiastic and energetic”.

Marles was also asked whether the 125 refugees and asylum seekers still on Manus Island should be brought to Australia and resettled given the government is bringing an end to its agreement with Papua New Guinea around the running of the offshore detention centre.

He said the government should be facilitating third-party resettlement options.

The obligation that this government needs to fulfil is to find third-country options in respect of those who are in PNG. That’s really clear. The basis upon which the centre was established under the Rudd government was to precisely not have people be resettled in Australia, so that the journey between Java and Christmas Island could be brought to an end. That’s occurred.

It’s important that principle is maintained. But that doesn’t mean the government doesn’t have an obligation in respect of those people. And finding third-country resettlement is a fundamentally critical step that the government needs to fulfil. To be honest, we’re eight years down the track and there remain that number of people who have not found third-country resettlement option, and it’s an indictment on the efforts of this government.

On the new requirement that federal MPs working in Victoria need to be vaccinated, Marles said he supports it, and the federal government should be showing leadership:

Certainly, I think federal MPs should be getting vaccinated. We’re role models for the community. We need to take a leadership role here and getting vaccinated is the way we get to the other side of Covid-19. If there are any MPs out there that are not getting vaccinated, I think that’s a disgrace. I think that sends exactly the wrong message in relation to this. I would absolutely expect federal MPs to be getting vaccinated.

Daniel Andrews has made the decision he’s made in relation to mandatory vaccines. I think it’s really important that state governments are able to make public health orders in the interests of protecting the citizens of their state and that’s what he’s done.

To be honest, I think there should be some federal leadership here from Scott Morrison at a national level around establishing standards in terms of workplace vaccination policy. They really should be getting employers’ unions around the table to work through a policy. In the absence of that leadership, state governments need to be able to make public health orders of this kind and I support what he’s done.

All we’ve got here is conjecture. This is an entirely different situation to what we’ve seen in New South Wales last week which was very clear and very plain. I definitely don’t think Daniel Andrews should be standing down as the premier of Victoria. I think it’s a completely different set of circumstances to what played out in New South Wales last week.

And I get the state oppositions are going to try and beat up conjecture but that’s all got at the moment.

Australians with compromised immune systems could start receiving Covid-19 booster shots this year before third jabs are rolled out more widely in 2022, AAP reports.

Health authorities are closely monitoring overseas programs with the United States, United Kingdom, Israel and France among countries offering boosters.

Vaccine rollout coordinator John Frewen said science was not yet settled on third jabs, but the health department was working on a strategy.

“It’s possible we may see a third dose for those people who have compromised immune systems in some way, maybe later this year,” he told the Seven Network on Wednesday.

“But otherwise I think that the plan for the boosters will either be later this year or more likely into next year when it will all become a bit like the flu shot.”

A major US study published on Monday found Pfizer was 90% effective at preventing Covid-19 hospitalisations for at least six months even against the rampant Delta variant.

But protection from infection dropped from 88% within one month after receiving two vaccine doses to 47% after six months.

Booster programs in rich countries have come under fire with many poorer nations still trying to vaccinate their populations.

The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation will in coming weeks provide updated advice about a small cohort of people that may need a third dose to complete their primary course.

“Atagi anticipates that additional booster doses for other populations may be required in the future,” the expert panel said last month.

Federal and state governments are planning to start a booster program in late 2021 subject to Atagi advice and regulator approval.

A company that was providing accommodation for homeless people in 2020 as part of the Victorian government’s Covid-19 response, has been charged by Worksafe over safety breaches.

Worksafe has alleged Keyun Enterprises, running the Comfy Kew Apartments, failed to have a Covid Safe plan in place, and did not require contractors to sign in, or require people to wear a mask on the premises back on 28 September 2020.

Worksafe alleges this put patrons and contractors at risk, and the company has been charged over the breach, with a mention hearing set at the Melbourne magistrates’ court on 30 November.