Health News at Your Fingertips

The Western Australian government has also launched a new app that it says can be used to help police conduct self-quarantine checks on travellers.

The premier, Mark McGowan, earlier today cited the app as a reason the state could slightly ease its border restrictions on New South Wales and Victorian residents.

The app, called G2G Now, uses location data and facial recognition technology to conduct “virtual check-ups” on people, according to the state’s police commissioner, Chris Dawson.

“This new app will deliver greater certainty and confidence in self-quarantining,” McGowan said. “As a result of this technology, we have confidence in taking the next steps to ease some of our restrictions.”

The app is voluntary, but McGowan said all visitors to WA would be “strongly encouraged” to download it.

“The incentive to download the app is you’ll not need to have police physically checking in on you as regularly,” he said.

The Nationals senator Matt Canavan has just ruled out moving to the lower house by running for the Queensland seat of Groom.

The former MP for Groom John McVeigh retired from politics earlier this month, triggering a byelection in the safe LNP seat.

Canavan just told the ABC he was asked to run but declined.

McVeigh, who as a Queensland MP was a member of the combined LNP but sat in the Liberal party room, had won the seat with a primary vote of 53% at the last election. Canavan sits in the Nationals party room.

He told the ABC’s Jane Norman he had “ruled that out”.

“I was asked. I used to live in Toowoomba, which the seat of Groom surrounds, so I was asked. Look, I’m very happy in central Queensland.”

Norman: “What about if there was an intervention? If you were drafted?”

Canavan: “Well, no, I made a decision to stay here because, look, a lot of it’s about family obviously. I’ve got five young children … I didn’t really, I didn’t want to leave. So it was nice to be asked but I’m staying put and I’ve got a lot more to do here in this region.”

The deputy Labor leader, Richard Marles, is now on the ABC, and has been asked whether he heard the comments of his colleague Joel Fitzgibbon – who threatened to quit the shadow ministry over the party’s renewables targets.

Fitzgibbon made the comments in an interview with Guardian Australia’s Katharine Murphy on our Australian Politics Live podcast.

Marles says Labor is still working on its policy.

“If you listen to the podcast from the Guardian fully, [Fitzgibbon] said this is a matter to be sorted out in shadow cabinet and he expected to abide by the outcome of that,” Marles says.

“There is a way to go in relation to all of these issues. We’ll work through them in a methodical way.”

He is also asked about the party’s support for gas in response to the government’s proposed “gas-led recovery”.

Marles says Labor supports both gas and renewables:

We are absolutely supportive of the Australian gas industry. No ifs, no buts. Australia is the world’s largest gas exporter. We are, of course, supportive of that. Gas is a critical component of manufacturing in Australia.

There’s no question about us being supportive of the role of gas and supportive of the gas industry. We are also very much supportive of trying to build a renewable energy sector in this country and seeing that as an important pathway forward in terms of getting to net-zero emissions by 2050, but also in terms of being a generator of jobs. Both of those things sit together and ultimately we are supportive of both.

On the ABC, the national secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia, Paddy Crumlin, has refuted claims from Patrick Terminals that there are 90,000 containers that can’t come into port due to an ongoing industrial dispute.

Crumlin said the company was being Trumpian in its statements, and all the union had done was one four-hour stoppage.

“There’s one ship or two ships sitting off Botany, and there is always two ships sitting off Botany,” he said. “The only reason there are a few bottlenecks off Botany is the company, through their tremendous maintenance capability, cut through an electrical cable and shut the joint down for 48 hours. They have a software system out there that doesn’t work.”

Asked by host Jane Norman about the 90,000 container claim, he said it was “nonsense”.

“Absolutely fake news,” Crumlin said. “You know, a la Donald Trump. Bullshit.”

In climate news, the Bureau of Meteorology has confirmed that La Niña has formed and will remain until the end of the year.

La Niña increases the chance of floods and above average rainfall across Australia during spring.

The bureau said that half of its models predict “a strong [La Niña] event”, while three of eight predict a moderate event.

“Overall, models do not currently anticipate this event will be as strong as the La Niña of 2010–12, which was one of the four strongest La Niñas on record,” the bureau said.

McGowan also announced that there have been no new cases of Covid-19 overnight, after eight cases were reported yesterday among the crew of the Patricia Oldendorff cargo ship off Port Hedland.

He also said that the change to allow non-hotel quarantine would ease pressure on the state’s hotel quarantine system.

The premier said that he would remain “cautious” and the hard border would remain in place for now.

Like everything, we will continue to monitor the situation over east. But until we have confidence that community spread is under control, the border will stay in place.

The WA premier, Mark McGowan, has just announced that the state will lift its hard border restrictions, allowing some residents of NSW and Victoria into the state – as long as they go through quarantine.

From Monday 5 October, residents of NSW will be able to enter WA under the same restrictions as other states.

Currently, people can only enter WA if they are exempt travellers – but people who have been in Victoria and NSW in the past 14 days cannot be exempted.

McGowan said that this change was recommended by the chief health officer, after the low numbers in NSW and the declining numbers in Victoria.

Victorians who enter WA from 5 October will “no longer need to quarantine in a hotel facility as long as they have an appropriate premise to quarantine in safely”, McGowan said.

The premier said this was a “significant but reasonable change”.

Hi all, it’s Naaman Zhou here. Thanks to Amy Remeikis for running the blog earlier today.

A story from this morning: the prime minister, Scott Morrison, has rebuked his deputy PM, Michael McCormack, after the latter said yesterday that paying $30m for land worth $3m would in future be seen as a “bargain”.

There is a national Covid update at 3.30pm, which Naaman Zhou is going to take you through.

Thank you again for joining me today. I’ll be back tomorrow morning. Please, until then – take care of you. Ax

It continues:

In Victoria at the current time:

• 4,273 cases may indicate community transmission – a decrease of one since yesterday
• 326 cases are currently active in Victoria
• 46 cases of coronavirus are in hospital, including five in intensive care
• 18,978 people have recovered from the virus
• A total of 2,677,022 test results have been received, which is an increase of 8,226 since yesterday

Of the 326 current active cases in Victoria:

• 320 are in metropolitan Melbourne under the second step of our roadmap
• Six are in regional local government areas under the third step of our roadmap
• 0 are interstate residents
• 0 are either unknown or subject to further investigation
• Colac Otway has one active case and greater Geelong, greater Bendigo and Ballarat have no active cases.

Of the total cases:

• 18,766 cases are from metropolitan Melbourne, while 1,192 are from regional Victoria
• Total cases include 9,613 men and 10,530 women
• Total number of healthcare workers: 3,540, active cases: 53
• There are 158 active cases relating to aged care facilities

Active aged care outbreaks with the highest active case numbers are as follows:

• Estia Keilor: 34 (45 total)
• Opal Hobsons Bay Altona North: 23 (total cases: 44)
• Embracia Moonee Valley Aged Care: 22 (total cases: 80)
• Baptcare Wyndham Lodge Community Werribee: 14 (total cases: 260)
• Edenvale Manor Aged Care Facility Keilor East: 13 (total cases: 22)
• Doutta Galla Aged Services Woornack: 8 (total cases: 60 )
• Mercy Place Parkville aged care: 7 (total cases: 104)
• Twin Parks Aged Care Reservoir: 4 (total cases: 127)
• Churches of Christ Care Arcadia Aged Care Essendon: 4 (total cases: 22)
• Epping Gardens Aged Care: 3 (total cases: 220)

In Victoria there are currently two active cases in residential disability accommodation:

• Total resident cases: 0; total staff cases: 2
• Active cases in NDIS homes: 2 (0 residents)
• Active cases in “transfer” homes (state regulated/funded): 0
• Active cases in state government delivered and funded homes: 0

Non-aged care outbreaks with the highest number of active cases include:

• 9 active cases are currently linked to the Casey community outbreak (total cases: 44)
• 7 active cases are currently linked to Footscray hospital (total cases: 20)
• 6 active cases are currently linked to Alfred hospital (total cases: 11)
• 5 active cases are currently linked to the Springvale shared accommodation outbreak (total cases: 5)

The official Victoria Health update is out:

Victoria has recorded 10 new cases of coronavirus since yesterday, with the total number of cases now at 20,158.

The overall total has increased by nine due to one case being reclassified.

Three of today’s 10 new cases have been linked to known outbreaks or complex cases. One is linked to aged care (Embracia Moonee Valley) and two are linked to health services (Western Health and Monash Health). The other seven cases remain under investigation.

Of today’s 10 new cases, there are two cases in Casey, Monash and Moreland, and single cases in Hobsons Bay, Knox, Moonee Valley and Wyndham.

There have been seven new deaths from Covid-19 reported since yesterday. One man in his 60s, one man in his 70s, one woman in her 80s, two men in 80s, one woman in her 90s and one man in his 90s. Three deaths occurred prior to yesterday.

Six of today’s seven deaths are linked to a known aged care facility outbreak. To date, 794 people have died from coronavirus in Victoria.

The average number of cases diagnosed in the last 14 days for metropolitan Melbourne is 18.2 and regional Victoria is 0.6. The rolling daily average case number is calculated by averaging out the number of new cases over the past 14 days.

The total number of cases from an unknown source in the last 14 days is 27 for metropolitan Melbourne and zero for regional Victoria. The 14-day period for the source of acquisition data ends 48 hours earlier than the 14-day period used to calculate the new case average due to the time required to fully investigate a case and assign its mode of acquisition.