Health News at Your Fingertips

At least 40 vehicles have had their tyres slashed in the north-west Melbourne suburbs of Essendon and Moonee Ponds last night.

Victoria police are appealing for assistance from the public after the damaged vehicles were found in Buckley Street, Salisbury Street and Primrose Street in Essendon, and Montague Street in Moonee Ponds between 9pm-10pm.

In a statement, the police said:

Police have spoken to several victims today and would like to hear from any victims who have not yet spoken with police.

Investigators would also like to speak with residents in the area with security cameras on their properties.

Josh Butler

CMO warned PM that further waves of Covid-19 infection “highly likely”

Back on Covid isolation being abolished by national cabinet, we can share some interesting details from chief medical officer Paul Kelly’s advice to prime minister Anthony Albanese.

The PM’s office shared the letter that Kelly wrote, in which he wrote that the proposed changes were “a reasonable approach”:

In the current Australian context of low community transmission and high hybrid immunity from vaccination and recent infection, it is my view that removing mandated isolation requirements in the current period would not materially detract from Australia’s pandemic response and would be consistent with the current aims of that response.

However (and this is the point I went to in the question I asked Kelly in the press conference about whether isolation rules might be returned at some point in future), the CMO also specifically notes his advice is tied to this point in time and current trends.

While backing the cut to isolation, Kelly also suggested national cabinet commission commission “a detailed transition plan which would adequately prepare Australia to respond to a surge in cases” in the event of a new Covid variant in future.

I asked Kelly whether he would ever see a moment where he would provide health advice to reinstate mandatory isolation. He didn’t say no.

In his letter, he warned it was “highly likely that further waves of infection will continue to occur over the next two years at least”, citing new virus variants of higher transmissibility or severity, low use of masks and low adherence to public health guidelines.

Kelly warned Australia would need “constant vigilance and a strong commitment as well as continued capacity to surge the response”.

Just on that koala story, the reason we’re hearing the warnings today is because it has been dubbed “Save the Koala day” by the Australian Koala Foundation.

I highly recommend you have a look at this useful explainer from Guardian Australia’s environment reporter, Lisa Cox.

Koalas at risk of extinction, experts warn

One of Australia’s most iconic native animals is at risk of being functionally extinct and urgent government action is needed, according to wildlife experts, via AAP.

Over the past two decades, koala populations have nearly halved because of urban expansion, loss of habitat, disease and climate change, and experts believe they remain under threat. Rolf Schlagloth, Central Queensland University’s koala ecologist, said:

There is a risk of extinction. The time frame is pretty difficult to determine. The biggest threat has always been and still is the loss and the fragmentation of habitat. We are still losing more habitat every year, and in some states it’s worse than others.

Exact koala population figures are largely unknown because of the 2019-20 bushfires, but government estimates show in 2001 there were roughly 184,748 koalas in Queensland, NSW and the ACT. By 2021 this figure had dropped to about 92,184.

It is estimated there are about 450,000 koalas in Victoria, but this figure is often disputed.

Post-covid flight cancellations continue

The Australian singer-songwriter Alexandra Lynn, known better as Alex the Astronaut, has taken to social media to reveal the trouble Lynn’s drummer has had in travelling from Sydney to Brisbane with the national carrier.

It comes as the entire travel industry struggles to get back to the pre-Covid normal.

Optus to pay for replacement passports

Josh Taylor

Optus will pay for the replacement of passports for people caught up in the data breach, prime minister Anthony Albanese has announced.

The foreign minister, Penny Wong, wrote to Optus earlier in the week calling on the company to pay for replacement passports for those who had their passport numbers exposed in the leak. Today, Albanese said Optus had agreed to the request.

He said:

Optus have responded to my request that I made both in the parliament and that senator Wong made in writing to Optus [confirming] they will cover the costs of replacing affected customers’ passports. I think that’s entirely appropriate. I find it extraordinary that the federal opposition called upon taxpayers to foot the bill.

It’s been a busy hour with announcements from both the national cabinet about scrapping Covid-19 isolation period and the Australian Federal Police revealing a new operation in relation to the Optus breach.

(Suffice to say the team at the Guardian heartily approve of its new name)

Both those press conferences are over now, but if you want to read more about Operation Guardian, my colleague Josh Taylor has this report:

‘Isolation itself cannot be seen in isolation’: chief medical officer

Just circling back to the to those opening comments from chief medical officer Paul Kelly who spoke about how the government is balancing the need to move away from Covid-19 exceptionalism at the same time as acknowledging the infectiousness of the virus:

It is a time, though, now to consider that we have other things that we can do to protect those most vulnerable people, and that is absolutely our key aim.

Isolation itself cannot be seen in isolation. It needs to be seen in the context of that high vaccination rate, high previous infection giving further protection, the availability of treatments, the availability of vaccines, including the new … vaccines and all the measures we have in place to protect vulnerable people where they are. It is time to move away from Covid exceptionalism, in my view, and thinking about what we should do to protect people from any respiratory disease.

That does not mean we have somehow magically changed the infectiousness of this virus. It is still infectious. This is an important epidemiological point: We can’t look at isolation by itself. We need to look at those measures and the protections we have as well as other protections. It is important that we keep an option for a change to these settings in the future … to keep that vigilance for new variants, for example, for changes in the epidemiological situation in Australia, for signs that we have strain on our health care system, and be prepared to make different decisions at the that moment.

For now, as I’ve stated, I believe removing isolation at this time is a reasonable cause of action from the public health point of view.

‘There’s not a role for government in running every bit of people’s lives forever’: Albanese

Back to the Covid-19 isolation period being scrapped. Journalists are asking Albanese about treating Covid like the flu or any other kind of virus:

Q: It’s pretty clear that Covid does have long-term implications for some people who do get it. Number one what, are you doing to help people who may have those more long-term issues with Covid infections, and for Prof Kelly, are you expecting an impact on the general population by having Covid more freely spreading and how will that work with people getting long Covid?

Albanese:

[As] public decision-makers we have a responsibility to listen to the health advice but we’ve also got a responsibility to make decisions which are proportionate. That is what we have done.

Covid is still out there. We understand that, we talked about that need to continue to run campaigns to get people vaccinated. We continue to provide support in high-risk areas. We’ll continue to monitor these issues and we’ll have another discussion in December.

But as prof Kelly said, we’re making the decisions based upon the circumstances we’re in right now, just as [in] over the winter period – where we had a combination of an increase in Covid infections, with a severe flu season as well – that had a combined impact on the health system that required a continuation of emergency measures.

… The nature of emergency measures is that they’re not there with no end date in sight. And it would not be responsible to do so because if this was a media conference, a year ago, a whole range of things would’ve been different … People are responding differently. I was at the MCG last week with just over 100,000 people. That was not happening, borders were closed.

We are changing our position based upon changing advice and changing circumstances. And that has to occur. There’s not a role for government in running every bit of people’s lives forever. And that is my firm position. You know, this isn’t an ideological thing. This is a practical outcome that was agreed across the board.

Albanese is asked about the Optus breach and whether the Telco has responded to government calls for them to pay for replacement passports for affected customers.

I think that’s entirely appropriate. I find it extraordinary that the federal opposition called upon taxpayers to foot the bill.

I note Paul Fletcher’s comments that attempted to play politics with this issue and blame the government, him having sat in a cabinet for nine years and his failure to provide any criticism on a serious level on Optus. I leave Mr Fletcher to explain why that was the case.

Albanese emphasises need to move away from ‘Covid exceptionalism’

Back to lifting mandatory Covid isolation and the lifting of Covid payments: what is the incentive for a casual worker to stay at home when they are sick if they risk not getting any money if they stay home?

Albanese:

One of the statements that Prof Kelly has used here today … was moving away from ‘Covid exceptionalism’. The flu has existed, and health issues have existed, for a long period of time, and the government hasn’t always stepped in to pay people’s wages while people have health concerns.

It is not sustainable to have in place a system whereby the government steps in permanently. We understand the pressures that are there, it is one reason why my government has focused as well on reducing the incidence of casual work and … the priority for my government is on creating permanent work, permanent employment, it’s one of the risks that there with the increased casualisation of the workforce that we have seen.

The head of the Australian Medical Association, Prof Steve Robson, had earlier told ABC News Breakfast:

If you think the flu is Covid, you’re living in fantasy land. Covid is long-term infectious, we’re already seeing a massive effect of long Covid on the workforce and the community. You don’t have it with long flu or long cold. It’s fantasy.

Albanese: ‘it’s never been about the dollars, it’s about good health outcomes’

Albanese is asked about his agreement to work further on policy options for patients pathways and reducing pressure on hospitals. Does that mean the government is looking at eight separate deals of the national 50-50 funding agreements for hospital funding?

Look, we will continue to discuss healthcare as long as the commonwealth and states exist … That’s just a reality of the system which is there.

But one of the things that we have agreed, and we have made this point before, is that it isn’t just about a dollar amount. Part of the pressure that’s now in emergency departments is people who should not be going to hospitals but are going because there isn’t primary healthcare available, because people in nursing homes don’t have access to healthcare, so someone who is an aged care resident who could have been assisted by having a nurse in a nursing home as identified by the aged care royal commission, and ends in the emergency department because health concerns become acute rather than dealt with in a timely manner.

There are people with disabilities who end up in emergency departments and in hospitals as well. We’ll continue to work on ways in which we can get better health outcomes … it’s never been about the dollars, it’s been about making sure that we get good health outcomes in the interests of the population. … Others are continuing to work on that, and we will have more to say in the future including at the December meeting of the national cabinet.

Kelly: We will continue to monitor aged care going forward

Guardian Australia’s very own Josh Butler asks Paul Kelly two questions:

Could you talk us through what impact you think this change would have on cases, hospitalisations, deaths, and you mentioned at the end of your comments about potentially changes to settings in future?

Kelly:

Our concern about the healthcare system in particular around the end of July, early August, at that time we had over 1,200 aged care facilities with outbreaks. Thousands of cases in aged care, hundreds of cases amongst healthcare [and] aged care workers. As of yesterday we have … just over 200 aged care outbreaks, less than 1,000 aged care residents with Covid, and 314 staff. Things have changed a lot since that time, and that’s included in a month where we decreased from seven days to five days, not in aged care but in the broader community.

Aged care is a really helpful way of looking at and monitoring the situation going forward because of the close attention we are giving to that particularly vulnerable setting and will continue to do that. Your second question was?

Q: Do you see a moment where you could recommend going back to mandatory isolation as a health recommendation? Your comments at the start seem to be emphasising … we’re in a low-risk setting, low community transmission setting. If we go back to a high-risk or high transmission setting, what would be your advice?

Kelly:

We have been tasked to come back with that advice. This comes back to the discussion about AHPPC (the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee) who have been very much involved with our charting-out of community protection framework for the next phase, a non-emergency phase of the pandemic response. And other parts of the government have looked at, the Health Department more broadly, had a transition approach. That would fit into that. We will … provide that advice in due course.

Prime minister says decision was unanimous

Q: Should we describe the decision today as unanimous by National Cabinet or is it better described as a consensus decision?

Albanese:

It was a unanimous decision by the national cabinet today and had the support of all premiers and chief ministers.

Recommendation ‘does not in any way suggest that the pandemic is finished’: CMO

Chief medical officer Prof Paul Kelly follows Albanese:

Yesterday the prime minister did ask me for some specific medical advice in relation to this proposal to remove the isolation period as it currently stands, so I provided him with that correspondence and that will be circulated as the prime minister has said.

I would like to stress that this is a context-specific and timing-specific set of recommendations. It recognises that we are in a very low … community transmission phase of the pandemic here in Australia. It does not in any way suggest that the pandemic is finished. We will almost certainly see future peaks of the virus into the future, as we have seen earlier in this year.

However, at the moment, we have very low rates of both cases, hospitalisations, intensive care admissions, aged care outbreaks and various other measures that we have been following very closely in our weekly open report.

We also have, at the moment, very high hybrid immunity from previous infection[s], as well as high vaccination rates particularly and specifically in those highly vulnerable communities – older people, people in aged care in particular, people living with a disability and the ones that we have talked about many times before.

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, began his address acknowledging the “devastating” impact of Hurricane Ian in Florida and to extend his deepest sympathies on behalf of Australia to all of those who have been affected in the Florida peninsula, the Cayman Islands and Cuba.

As for the national cabinet meeting, he says it’s been “a very successful meeting”:

We wanted to make sure that we have measures which are proportionate and that are targeted at the most vulnerable. We want to continue to promote vaccinations as being absolutely critical, including people getting booster shots. And we want a policy that promotes resilience and capacity-building and reduces a reliance on government intervention.

We have agreed to that … states and territory also end their respective mandatory isolation requirements on 14 October.

The pandemic leave disaster payments will end at that time as well, with the exception of people in high-risk settings, which need to be given particular support. So, aged care, healthcare, the measures, disability care, the areas that have been previously identified.

Optus hacker concealed their identity, police confirm

Just circling back to the Optus presser …

Gough was asked if the attack was a sophisticated attack or a basic attack as the home affairs minister said:

I am not going to go into the details of the cyber attack because it is the subject of our ongoing investigation, but the cyber criminal behind this hack has used obfuscation techniques to conceal their identity, but that is part of the ongoing investigation.