Health News at Your Fingertips

An aerial photo of the anti-vaccine mandate protesters in Canberra.

Police have ordered them to leave the Canberra show-grounds by today. This image was taken at about 12:30pm today.

I’m about to finish up for today, so I’m going to hand over the blog once again to Elias Visontay who will continue to bring you the news into the evening.

Thanks so much for keeping me company today!

Some uncertainty remains among economists around this week’s key labour force figures for January due to the impact of the Omicron Covid-19 variant on activity, the AAP reports.

The jobs market has been making a strong rebound from last year’s Delta strain lockdowns, which has seen the unemployment rate tumble to a 13-year low of 4.2%.

The Reserve Bank of Australia and the federal government are both predicting the jobless rate to fall below 4% this year, a level not seen in some 50 years.

However, economists don’t expect that to happen just yet.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics will release the January labour force report on Thursday.

It’s uncertain whether people gave up looking for work in despair over another virus outbreak, particularly such a highly infectious variant as Omicron.

So even if the January employment numbers are more subdued, a fall in the participation rate – those in work or seeking employment – could actually see another drop in the jobless rate.

Economists’ forecasts centre on the unemployment rate nudging down to 4.1%, although expectations range from 4% to 4.4%.

Predictions for employment point to a flat or unchanged result, but again forecasts range from a 60,000 fall to a 59,000 rise.

Senator Bridget McKenzie and minister for the environment Sussan Ley have released a joint press release announcing that the Liberal and Nationals government has allocated another $50m from the emergency response fund (ERF) to continue to protect communities from the effects of natural disaster.

According to the release, the new Coastal and Estuarine Risk Mitigation Program is aimed at reducing the often devastating impacts on local communities of natural disasters and coastal hazards, such as storm surges and coastal inundation.

In the statement, Ley acknowledged the impact that climate change is having on increasing the risk of coastal storm surges, flooding and associated coastal inundation.

“As climate change heightens the risk of such events, we are taking action to strengthen the resilience of our coastal environments and reduce the impacts on communities, property owners, local tourism economies and native species,” she said.

The AAP reports that two women in South Australia, both in their 80s, tragically died after testing positive for Covid-19.

There are 211 people with Covid receiving hospital treatment, including 17 in intensive care and five require a ventilator.

South Australia has 13,621 active virus cases and 151 people have died with Covid since the start of the pandemic.

Premier Mark McGowan says the government will consider restrictions as cases increase, AAP reports.

Currently WA has an indoor mask mandate and vaccination requirements to enter certain venues.

“We haven’t actually made a decision on when [further restrictions] will come in, but at some point in time they will come in,” McGowan said on Sunday.

WA continues to add to its stockpile of rapid antigen tests but McGowan says PCR testing will remain the preferred method so long as the state has capacity.

The so-called “super Saturday” byelection results may be bad for the New South Wales government, but they are not surprising.

While the full results won’t be known for weeks thanks to an increase in postal voting, it was clear by Saturday evening that the government had lost Bega for the first time since the seat was created in the 1980s.

The Guardian’s Michael McGowan writes that, for the Coalition, the results are a troubling reflection of how voters have responded to Dominic Perrottet’s handling of Omicron.

Read the article in full here: