Health News at Your Fingertips

In a shock result, Naomi Osaka has been knocked out of the singles tennis at the Olympics.

The Japanese star lost in the third round to Marketa Vondrousova.

You can follow the Olympics liveblog here:

Wild weather is set to sweep across Victoria on the first day out of lockdown.

Severe storms and blizzard conditions will lash Victoria as a cold front crosses the state, AAP reports.

The Bureau of Meteorology has issued a severe weather warning about destructive winds on Tuesday afternoon, with wind gusts of 98km/h winds already recorded at Mt Buller.

Senior forecaster Matthew Thomas said the blustery conditions will ramp up on Wednesday as “squally” westerly winds cross the state.

He said the severe weather warning will be extended to metropolitan Melbourne as wild winds are expected to move through the city on Wednesday afternoon, with gusts up to 100km/h expected in some parts.

Severe thunderstorms and hail could hit southern and northern parts of Victoria and the Wimmera.

Thomas also said “significant snowfall” is expected in the north-east alpine areas on Wednesday, however destructive winds of up to 125 km/h and blizzard conditions will also hit alpine peaks.

WA has reported two new Covid cases today – and a third to be reported tomorrow – among the crew of the Darya Krishna cargo ship which docked in Fremantle yesterday.

All three people are “critically ill”, according to the WA health minister Roger Cook.

Two healthcare workers also need to enter hotel quarantine for 14 days after a breach at the hospital where the crew members were taken for treatment.

Cook said that a “mechanical fault with one of the lifts” at the hospital meant that it was used by two staff members after transporting a sick crew member to intensive care.

“This is very disappointing and I am not going to make excuses, it is simply not good enough,” he said.

A couple who claimed the ABC portrayed them as abandoning their surrogate child with a disability in Ukraine will have to pay the broadcaster’s legal costs after withdrawing their defamation case.

Matthew Etnyre and his wife Irmgard Pagan sued over a 2019 Foreign Correspondent episode titled Motherland and a website article titled Damaged babies and broken hearts: Ukraine’s commercial surrogacy industry leaves a trail of disasters.

Justice Wendy Abraham in June ordered them to pay $100,000 within 28 days as security for the ABC’s legal costs.

The federal court proceedings would be stayed until the security was paid.

Their lawyer on Tuesday told the judge his clients were unable to raise the money and would not be continuing with the case, but asked they not be ordered to pay the ABC’s costs to date.

Meanwhile, thousands of homes are without power in WA after rain and damaging winds hit the state yesterday, continuing into today.

The ABC has just interviewed the caretaker of the Cape Leeuwin lighthouse, near Augusta.

He told them: “It was pretty wild. I slept through the worst of it, but I did wake up a few times.

“It was pretty cyclonic, but awesome.”

We’re still waiting on the WA health minister, Roger Cook, to front the state’s press conference today.

The WA press conference will be in approximately 20 minutes – at 12.15pm AWST/2.15pm AEST

The New Zealand government has granted the Wallabies a border exemption for the Bledisloe Cup, AAP reports.

The Wallabies will leave their pre-tournament camp in Queensland on Friday, arriving across the Tasman to beat the NZ government’s reinstatement of mandatory quarantine.

They will train in New Zealand for a week leading up to the series opener at Auckland’s Eden Park on August 7.

The NZ sport minister, Grant Robertson, said the matches were important to Kiwis and the economy.

“This decision was not taken lightly … Test rugby between the All Blacks and the Wallabies is keenly anticipated by New Zealanders,” Robertson said.

“A Test match is estimated to be worth between $17-20 million ($A16-19 million) in spending for host regions, while the broadcast rights provide much needed income for the sport, which positively effects all levels of the game.”

Last week, Jacinda Ardern’s government announced it was closing down the trans-Tasman bubble for eight weeks in response to mounting Covid-19 cases in NSW and the potential for spread to other states.

Kiwis and other regular NZ residents have been given until Saturday to return home and avoid being stranded in Australia.

The tough border rules mean the Rugby Championship schedule will need to be tweaked. Game two of the Bledisloe Cup is likely to take place in New Zealand before the All Blacks head to Australia for a likely game three in Perth.

NSW Health has just confirmed that a seven-day lockdown for the Orange, Blayney and Cabonne council areas in the central west of NSW will end tomorrow, as was planned.

The three areas were put into lockdown last week, and had to abide by similar restrictions to greater Sydney after cases were detected on 20 July.

But today NSW Health announced: “There has been no further transmission of Covid-19 detected in the region since the case notified on 20 July.

Orange City Council, Blayney Shire Council, and Cabonne Shire Council will revert to the same restrictions as the rest of regional NSW from tomorrow (Wednesday).

“NSW Health thanks people in these local communities for their co-operation and patience during the stay-at-home restrictions for the past week.”

An unvaccinated resident of a Sydney disability group home has contracted coronavirus, with authorities scrambling to test everyone else at the Lakemba respite centre, AAP report.

The federal disability minister, Linda Reynolds, has just told Sky News: “Unfortunately nobody in that home had been vaccinated so we’re just waiting today to see whether any others have become positive.”

It is the second outbreak in disability care in as many weeks, after four residents and four staff at another NSW home tested positive.

All of them had received one dose of their vaccination and none have been hospitalised.

Reynolds told Sky News she accepted mistakes had been made with the vaccine rollout in disability care.

“There is no question it was a slow start to the rollout of disability vaccinations,” she said. “It was really underestimated, the complexity, but things are now going very well.”

Reynolds said 60% of disability care residents had received their first vaccination, while 75% of those living in nursing homes had received at least one dose.

Only one in three disability residents have been fully vaccinated, despite being included in the highest priority group for the national rollout.

Hi everyone, it is indeed Naaman Zhou here with you. Thanks to the great Matilda Boseley as always for kickstarting this blog, revving it up and guiding it through the most difficult part of the day.

In Queensland, the state seat of Stretton has been declared for Labor’s James Martin.

Martin has comfortably won the byelection for the Brisbane-based seat after the death of popular state MP Duncan Pegg.

The Electoral Commission of Queensland declared the result on the strength of Martin’s primary vote today, without needing to count first preferences, AAP report.

He took home 56.58% of the primary vote against the Liberal National party’s Jim Bellos who polled 32.67% in Saturday’s byelection. Candidates from the Greens, the Informed Medical Options party and the Animal Justice party garnered less the 11% of the primary vote.

Martin, a former Labor staffer for Pegg, will succeed the popular local MP who died of cancer just shy of his 41st birthday on 10 June, ending his six-year parliamentary stint.

Labor had already claimed victory on Saturday night with 56% of the vote counted.