Health News at Your Fingertips

Australia’s economic downturn is going from bad to worse as virus lockdowns in the nation’s biggest states become broader and are set to run even longer, reports AAP.

Whether it results in a second recession in as many years remains to be seen, but one prominent economist says the next few months are going to feel like one for many.

Economists have been predicting a downturn in the September quarter for some weeks, but anticipated the economy recovering in the final months of the year.

A technical recession is usually the result of two consecutive quarters of economic contraction.

“Whether it is a technical recession, for a lot of businesses and a lot of individuals it is going to feel like one,” Market Economics managing director Stephen Koukoulas told AAP.

Figures to be released this week include labour force figures for July, which are expected to show the unemployment rate nudging up to 5% after dropping to a decade low of 4.9% in June.

However, that report will only capture the first few weeks of the lockdown in Sydney, the nation’s largest city.

With large parts of the country in lockdown, the Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union wants more income support.

In particular, it says in a statement:

As a matter of immediate urgency, state and territory leaders must start extending the $1,500 isolation payment to everyone who has been diagnosed with Covid, or is a close contact. As it stands, welfare recipients are excluded from this payment – a needlessly cruel decision that is already harming people.

It also says it would like the government to reintroduce the coronavirus supplement, which it says should be extended to “everybody on social security: disabled people and carers, pensioners and students, as well as any people living in Australia regardless of the work they do or their visa status”.

We must start paying people to stay home. Whether we’re in the grip of a pandemic or not, social security should mean we’re all above the poverty line.

They’ve just wrapped up in Melbourne, after two hours. Certainly one of the longer press conferences during the pandemic that I can remember.

Weimar is asked: where do we need higher testing?

He nominates the south-eastern suburbs (St Kilda and Caulfield area) and the Middle Park area in particular.

There are more than 500 exposure sites now, Weimar says.

And on the engagement party:

Jeroen Weimar, the Covid commander in Victoria, has stepped up. This really is a marathon press conference.

My colleague Calla Wahlquist has a good summary of his comments.

Daniel Andrews believes that other jurisdictions should be asked why they haven’t adopted a curfew too. He doesn’t name who he means, but I think we know.

“It’s worked here. We’re doing it again because it worked here.”

Victorian parliament won’t be sitting this week as a result of the updated health advice.

Andrews is being asked why other people who have broken the rules (by having home visits) and spread the virus have not been fined, but the people at the engagement party incident will be.

His argument, which he takes a while to get to, appears to be that there is a video – which means there is no need for leniency to encourage people to be honest with contact tracers.

His argument appears to be that because there is a video, there is a need to send a message to the public.

There is more than just a crime and punishment element to this, there is also getting out of this. And you can’t have a good public health response if you criminalise having this virus. Where, however, there is a video that rather makes contact tracing a little easier, police always have, not me, it’s a matter for police … to either issue a warning or go further, the Chief Commissioner has made it clear what he has done in this case and I think most Victorians would support him with that.

Here is the Victorian Greens’ view on the latest lockdown extension.

Daniel Andrews appears to be laying down a marker about NSW’s plans on restrictions.

He says he’s not complaining about the fact NSW is getting half of the additional one million Pfizer doses, but that’s because there’s a national “framework”.

The reason I’m not complaining about that, it’s because we have a framework, while all of us are locked into the framework, at 70% we do certain things, and 80%, we do certain things, it’s not one state, it’s across the nation. I’m not quibbling with them [NSW] getting more support right now. Just to flip that, if people start doing things off their own bat, making decisions that affect the whole nation, I will reserve the right to have a different view and I won’t be the first minister to make that point.

Just to try and interpret that for a second – Andrews is essentially saying he’s fine with NSW getting the extra doses, provided the NSW government sticks to the 70% and 80% vaccination thresholds for opening up.

The Victorian premier says “it’s too early to say” whether there will be crowds at games at the AFL finals game.

What I am most concerned about now is all of us pulling together, finding it within ourselves to drive these numbers down. And that gives us options to have kids at school, to have businesses open, to have people back at work, football games with crowds and a million other things. We have lots of options once we drive these cases down: if we don’t drive them down, we will finish up like sitting, locked-in, for … months.

Andrews says there are no plans to reduce return traveller numbers coming through hotel quarantine at this point.

Not at this stage, I think I have demonstrated awareness to use that if I have to. I don’t think we have to do that right now.